


An Inexplicable Occurrence of Angels

by stele3



Category: Bandom, MCR - Fandom
Genre: I REGRET NOTHING, M/M, angel!fic, wing!fic, yes I wrote Frank Iero as a fallen angel WHAT OF IT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-22
Updated: 2013-02-22
Packaged: 2017-12-03 07:06:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 35,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/695560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stele3/pseuds/stele3





	1. And God Blinked First

Gerard hasn't prayed in years, probably not since Gamma died. It's just... no. Not happening. He imagines sometimes that he's in a staredown contest with God, arms folded, glaring at each other. 

God blinks first. Gerard's not sure that he should feel proud about that, or worried about getting smited. Smote? Smitten? Whatever.

It starts with a giant crash just after dawn. The ceiling of Gerard's bedroom rattles with footsteps that don't head in any particular direction, just thunder aimlessly from side to side. Then more crashing. Sounds like dishes.

Gerard rolls out of bed and runs into the door twice before he gets the doorknob to turn; his heart beats so hard it's pounding his guts into submission, stomach twisting pathetically. Mikey sounds drunk or high or something worse – Gerard can imagine some pretty horrific possibilities. 

Except then he gets out into the hallway and Mikey is standing right there staring at him, hovering just outside his own door. "What the fuck?" Gerard croaks, his heart seizing up mid-stroke.

"What the fuck?" Mikey says back flatly. He's scared, though, Gerard can tell. "That's not you?"

Another crash from upstairs. "Holy shit," Gerard breathes.

It's either a burglar or a distraught fan, or both. They go up together, Gerard clutching a croquet mallet that Mikey inexplicably had in his closet. Gerard makes Mikey hang back, then pokes his head quickly around the edge of the kitchen doorway and yanks it back.

He stops. Blinks.

"What is it?" Mikey whispers.

Gerard pokes his head around the corner again, a bit slower this time. Stares.

There's a guy in the kitchen. A naked, shivering guy with tattoos, who's currently curled up on the floor with his face tucked in his arms. And out of his pointy, hunched shoulders sprout a pair of pure-white, 4-foot long wings that have knocked the clock off the wall, the dishes off the counter, and upended all four of the chairs.

"Huh," Gerard says.

Taking the… guy downstairs isn't high on Gerard's list of bright ideas, but as Mikey points out, "Mom'll have a stroke if she sees him." Mikey stays in the kitchen scooping up broken crockery while Gerard kind of herds the guy downstairs. It doesn't take much work: he flinches away every time Gerard comes near him, running into walls and panting and shivering all over. Even the _wings_ shake. 

When they get down to his room, Gerard shuts the door then stands next to it. Their visitor is on the smallish side, with dark hair that curls around a sharp chin. Tattoos cover his body, writing and pictures that Gerard can't make out in the dim light.

He's still naked. Gerard flushes and yanks his eyes back up to face level. "Um. Are you cold?" Dumb question: he can hear the guy's teeth rattle together. "Okay. Can you – " He puts his hand out slowly. 

The guy looks at Gerard's hand, wide-eyed and arms hugged tight across his chest. Gerard puts on what he hopes is an encouraging face and leaves his hand hanging there, unmoving.

After a long moment in which Gerard can practically hear the guy's _ribs_ jackhammering against each other, he shuffles awkwardly forward and almost tips forward into Gerard's chest. _He doesn't know how to walk_ , Gerard thinks, steering the guy – boy, he's a boy, up close he doesn't look a day older than Mikey – down to sit on the bed. Narrow fingers close tight around his wrist, but there's no freakout. 

Footsteps thump outside. The boy jumps at the sound, scooting backward in the bed; his wings tear Gerard's _Aliens_ poster off the wall. Mikey sidles into the room, his eyes huge. "Is he…?"

The winged boy flops around in Gerard's bed, tangled with the comforter and knocking over a stack of CDs. "I think," Gerard says slowly, uncertain, "he's an angel."

-o-

"We should maybe buy him some clothes," Mikey whispers.

"What?"

"Clothes. To wear. He's really small, I don't think he's going to fit in either of ours."

Gerard gapes at his younger brother. "There is an angel. In my bed. And you're worried about his _pant size_?"

Mikey pushes his glasses up his nose. "Can you think of anything else that we should be doing?"

So far they've spent half the morning seated on Gerard's floor staring at the angel, who sits on the bed and stares back. It took him an hour to stop shivering, even with another record-hot day slitting its sharp beams over the horizon; Mikey had finally dragged _his_ comforter in, too, and the angel's dark eyes peer over the edge of a thick cocoon. 

"No?" Gerard finally admits, defeated. 

Mikey nods, chewing on his lower lip. "Okay. Um. I think the Goodwill in Clifton will be open. I'll be fast."

"Wait, wait – you're not leaving me here with – him." Gerard latches onto his arm, darting eyes at the lump of comforters and wings. "What if he, like, starts speaking in tongues or something?"

"I dunno. Speak in tongues back?"

 _Mikey Way, ladies and gentlemen: buy the wrong cereal and it's the end of the world. Drop an inexplicable angel and he wants to go shopping._ "Fine," Gerard groans. "Leave me to get smited."

Mikey purses his lips, thinking. "I'm pretty sure it's 'smote.' Besides, he's, like, tiny. And he looks like he's twelve. I don't think he's here to smite us."

"Whatever," Gerard grumps. If Mikey's not going to spaz the hell out, neither is he. Much. "Go buy him some Decepticon gear, you freak."

The pale flash of a middle finger hails Mikey's departure. Then it's just Gerard, in his bedroom, alone with an angel. Only _his_ life could be this weird. Part of him wants to crawl back into bed and pretend this was all a withdrawal-induced hallucination – but that would entail pushing the angel _out_ of his bed, and Gerard's not so convinced about the whole no-smiting thing. 

Oh, shit, the angel's watching him again, leaning forward to poke his chin over the edge of the comforter like a small animal emerging from its burrow. "Hi," Gerard greets uncertainly.

The angel cocks his head to one side, doing nothing to dispel the impression of, like, a lemur or something. "Can you understand what I'm saying?" Gerard asks. "Blink twice if you understand me."

No luck, but then the angel's gaze slides away to the window and his thin little mouth tips downward. After a brief struggle – 

"Oh, hey, you maybe shouldn't – "

– he kicks free of the comforters and stands up, still naked.

" – or, you know, whatever," Gerard chokes, and tucks his burning face behind one hand. _Definitely_ not twelve years old. 

In the corner of his vision the angel shuffle-steps over to the window, peering up at the single, intrepid ray of light slipping into the room. After a moment he lifts his hand to pass it through the beam, like it's something he can touch. Sunlight plays across his fingers, held and released, tripping over his knuckles on its customary way to the floor.

Gerard watches, sort of totally forgetting to keep his hand up. The angel doesn't seem to notice: his focus is absolute, eyes intent. He spreads his palm, fingers speared outward, tilting it so that the light slips sideways across his palm. 

As he tips his arm, the beam falls across black letters tattooed on the soft skin inside his elbow. It's just a brief flash, but it's enough for Gerard to read: 'TAKE THIS TO MY GRAVE.'

It's hot. It's been so hot, this whole last week, and Gerard has been down here breathing the same stale air. It crowds up into his open mouth and nose, pushing on his lungs. "That's," he croaks, then clears his throat, tries again. The angel looks over and Gerard points to the words on his arm, says, "That's mine."

He knows the rest of it, too, and so does Mikey. Mikey's seen the last gasps of creativity, the scrawled lyrics and half-hearted sketches that Gerard has managed to peel from the mess he's made of himself. But no one else has and no one _will_ : Gerard had his chance and he blew it for all of them. Now he's a has-been rock star living in his mom's basement.

With an angel. A has-been rock star in his mom's basement _with an inexplicable angel_ , who has Gerard's unsung lyrics tattooed on his forearm and, now that Gerard looks closer, on his chest and torso and legs and _neck_. And everywhere there aren't lyrics there are _pictures_ that Gerard knows too, from the sketchbook tucked under his mattress.

Gerard scrambles up and backs away, shaking. "Who are you?"

The angel twitches away, too, his eyes widening at Gerard's sudden movement. One of the wings bumps hard against Gerard's desk, and he kind of half _flaps_ to regain his balance, utterly fails, and tips over to bang his head against the wall. 

The rush of air from his wings hits Gerard and jolts him into motion, out the door into the hallway.

-o-

Mikey finds Gerard on the front porch a half hour later, a cigarette in his mouth and half a dozen crumpled butts beside him. "Don't tell me he's gone."

Gerard jumps up and grabs Mikey's wrist, ignoring Mikey's squawk when bags of Decepticon gear tumble to the porch. He tugs Mikey through the living room and down the back stairs, leaving a trail of fallen clothing behind them. 

He pulls up outside his own door and whispers, "He has my lyrics."

"Did you leave him alone in there?"

" _Mikey_." Gerard shakes his brother once, hard. "He has my _lyrics_. Tattooed on his _skin_."

Mikey stares, clearly torn between _holy shit_ and _oh, God, Gee is being dramatic again_. "So," he says slowly, "maybe he's a fan?"

"With _wings_?"

"An angelic fan? Gee, a lot of people have tattoos of our lyrics."

"Not – Mikey, not those lyrics." Gerard flaps his hands, _willing_ Mikey to figure it out. "The other ones. The – my – I wrote last week!"

Mikey's expression doesn't change, but Gerard can see the exact moment when it clicks in his brain. "Post-band lyrics?"

" _Yes_." Gerard shifts between his feet, ready to bolt. "This isn't, like, a random angel invasion, Mikey, he's here for me. _He's come for me_."

"Okay, okay. Don't freak out – "

"Stop _not_ freaking out, Mikey!"

They both cut off when the door thumps. Gerard freezes in place, his eyes darting to the knob as it jiggles and starts slowly to turn. It's like a scene from some cheesy slasher flick: _ladies and gentlemen, tonight the part of Stupid Teenage Heroine will be played by Gerard Way_. He can't move, though, all the muscles in his legs have locked up.

The door eases open. The angel pokes his face around the edge, lemur-like once again; his eyes look suspiciously wet and his expression is one of utter misery.

"Hey," Mikey greets after a moment, his voice soft and going a little higher, like he's talking to a kitten or a baby. "Hey, dude. You okay?"

The angel sniffles a little, looking back and forth between them. He opens the door wider; Gerard automatically puts his hand over his face again. Then he drops it in shock when the angel croaks, "Hey due you okay," in a surprisingly deep voice.

Gerard gasps. "You _can_ talk?" 

The angel peers at him, lips working a moment before he says, "You _can_ talk."

"Gee," Mikey whispers, "I think he's repeating what we say."

"Gee," the angel whispers, "I think his repeating what he say." He frowns.

"That's… close," Gerard tells him hesitantly, at the same time Mikey says, "Is that my face on his chest?"

-o-

Once Mikey puts clothes on him things get a little easier. The angel seems to like his new duds, picking curiously at the sweatpants and kicking his legs around inside the fabric. Mikey holds a T-shirt in his hands, eyeing the wings. "How can we – ?"

"Oh. Um. He'll have to step into it. And we gotta cut a hole in the back."

"Then how do we get it around his neck?"

"Ummmm." Gerard wrinkles his nose up, thinking. "I guess… cut the neck into straps? Like a halter top."

Mikey's lips quirk. "You want to put a halter top on the angel?"

" _Like_ a halter top, Mikey. Also, shut up."

Once he gets past his skittishness, the angel's inquisitive and touchy: he reaches up to pull at Gerard's hair, tugs Mikey's glasses off his face, and cranes his neck to watch Gerard put the shirt on him.

"Okay, _dude_ ," Gerard groans, ducking the wings as he tries to tie off the T-shirt's neck strap (he refuses to call it a halter top, even inside his own head – there's only so much weird that even _he_ can handle, and a cross-dressing inexplicable angel is right up there), "seriously, can you hold him still?"

"How?" Mikey asks, but reaches out and takes the angel firmly by both shoulders. "Hold still."

"Hold still," the angel parrots. He claps both of his hands on Mikey's shoulders.

Gerard ties off the T-shirt strap and hastily backs out of wing-reach, but still gets a swipe of feathers to the face when the angel turns. "Ackth!" he yelps as he falls backward.

On the other side of a wall of white, Mikey busts up laughing. After a moment the angel does, too, copying Mikey's snorting giggles perfectly.

"Now that's just creepy," Gerard says from his place on the bed, but he lies there unmoving for a moment, listening to Mikey laugh.

-o-

By the time Mikey gets around to asking, "What're we gonna do with him," they've moved down the hall to watch the Venture Brothers on the small TV in Mikey's room that Gerard hates (the color balance is so off, the reds give him a headache). 

"Papa Smurf has a eeee-ing beard! They're mammals!" the angel yells, mimicking the censor's high-pitched beep.

"What're we gonna do with him?" Mikey asks.

That exact question has been running laps around Gerard's brain for most of the day. "We can't tell anybody. We can't – they have religious cults based on window smears shaped like the Virgin Mary, think what they'd do if they saw _him_. Or," his stomach twists, "there'd be scientists who'd want to, like, do tests and shit."

The thought is sharp and horrifying. As freaked out as Gerard still feels, he can't imagine sending the little dude to a laboratory to get poked with, oh God, _needles_. "We gotta hide him."

"Hank, I had my pubes shaved!" the angel says.

"Okay, but I think Mom's gonna notice sooner or later that there's a third person living in the basement. And you know she can't keep secrets, man."

"Right. True. Um. We probably need to find somewhere else to put him. In a cabin, like, out in the woods, maybe?"

"Where're we gonna get a cabin?"

Gerard screws up his face, darting his eyes at Mikey. "Brian?"

Mikey's mouth opens a little then closes. They haven't talked to Brian since he called them to tell them that the label had canceled their contract. 

"I don't think," Mikey says slowly, "that Brian's too big on the idea of randomly giving us a cabin anymore."

It's a depressing thought, same as all the other stray thoughts Gerard has about the band; even the good times – their first album, their second album, the stage and lights and giddy rush of _making it_ , of reaching to the sky and hearing a crowd scream back at him through the rain like a whole forest of trees falling at once – are coated with this thick fucking layer of regret, now. Gerard picks at the blanket and slumps. "Yeah, guess not."

"Dean," the angel snaps, "have you been shooting dope into your scrotum?!"

A tiny line draws itself between Mikey's eyebrows. "Do you think we should be letting him watch this?"

"Iunno," Gerard shrugs. "He seems to like it."

-o-

They decide to call the angel Frank, after Francis the patron saint of animals; Gerard can't really get past the lemur thing.

If their mother notices the unusual amount of food heading into the basement, she keeps it to herself. She and Gerard haven't really had that much to do with each other since he arrived home in the back of a Matt Cortez's station wagon, fish-pale and clammy with his own sweat. 

It's totally unfair, of course, but his mother has become synonymous with failure in Gerard's mind. No more band, no more fans (or at least the non-bitter type), he's near broke and barely clean and has moved back in with his _mom_ ; just seeingher around the house makes Gerard want to tear his hair out or run away to form a new identity free of all the monumental disappointment.

Why Mom avoids _him_ is a question he doesn't ask and doesn't want to know.

Mikey's voice drags him out of these brooding thoughts. "Let's see if he likes ramen?"

Frank does indeed like ramen, and Hersey's chocolate sauce, and bananas. Then they introduce him to peanut butter, and it's all over; he tucks the entire jar against his chest and clumsily shovels spoonful after spoonful into his mouth.

Watching him eat, Gerard has another horrifying thought. "You think he knows how to use the bathroom?" 

Mikey's eyes widen. "Oh. Man. Maybe we shouldn't be feeding him so – "

"Not 'It'," Gerard says quickly.

" – much fo – fuck you, Gee!"

Mikey's sharp, bony foot nails him in the thigh, but Gerard is unrepentant. He grabs a bag of corn chips, shoves a handful in his mouth, and says around the sharp corners, "Ah fink ee shul caa Ay."

There's a pause, and then Mikey asks, "Did you just say that we should call Ray?"

Gerard keeps his eyes trained on Frank and chews. "Mmm."

He can feel Mikey watching him, but it's not like the thought hasn't been _out there_ already. In Gerard's experience, there are only two things that Ray Toro has never been able to fix: one was the crappy old van that they junked around in for two years before they signed the deal with Warner; the other was Gerard.

"Okay," Mikey says after a moment. Gerard silently thanks him for not saying anything more about it.

When Frank starts frowning and rubbing his stomach, Mikey, stony-faced, leads him to the bathroom; Gerard distracts himself by taking out his phone, scrolling through his phone book for Toro's number, then staring at it for a solid minute.

He punches 'Send' before he can talk himself out of it, and puts the phone to his ear. It goes to voicemail, thank God, and just hearing that reedy voice again makes Gerard smile. Then the beep goes off and it's his turn.

"Hey, Ray," he says, starting with as much nonchalance as possible; it evaporates fast in the heat and the muddle of his own brain. "It's Gerard. Yeah, back from the dead! Believe it! Um, hi, I hope – y'know, that your summer's going okay. How fucking hot is it, by the way? _So_ fucking hot, that's how hot. And, um – wow, I'm talking about the weather. Lame. Anyway, uh… gimme a call, wouldya? There's something… look, there's something I kinda need help with and I couldn't think of anybody, y'know, else," he hits the side of his own face, "not that, y'know, I'd call anybody else, because you're the _man_ , Ray. You fix – Jesus, whatever. Just call me, okay?"

He hangs up and flops back on Mikey's bed, makes a few angry, disgusted faces at the ceiling.

He's not sure what Ray will make of the message. The last time they saw each other had been after Otter – after Ray and Brian had gone to tell him that he was out of the band. And then they'd come back and told Gerard that he wasn't welcome back, either, not until he was clean. Ray had been tired, so fucking tired, of having to be the adult for everyone. He'd looked at Gerard with his sad eyes and he'd said, "You give me a call when you want, Gee. When you're ready."

It's been almost a year. If Ray had been holding out hope that the band would survive, Gerard thinks that it must be all gone by now. Ray had always held on the hardest, had lived and breathed the music. He'd joined the band because he'd _believed_ in it; he'd believed in Gerard.

And Gerard had let him down.

The bathroom door opens. Mikey comes out, followed by a rather bewildered-looking Frank. 

Mikey crosses straight to the bed and elbows Gerard out of the way viciously, then pulls a pillow over his head. "Under pain of _death_ ," he says, muffled through the fabric, "we'll never speak of this _again_."

Gerard tucks his face into his brother's shoulder and howls with laughter.

-o-

Monday dawns with a cool breeze from the ocean pushing through the heatwave. Mikey leaves early to bike his way to work. He's back at Eyeball Records, which was pretty cool of them to them to welcome him back; on the other hand, Gerard can't imagine going to work with a whole office full of people that know all about the train wreck known as My Chemical Romance. At least Gerard gets to hide out at home, licking his wounds.

He sometimes wishes Mikey would wash his hands altogether, would just leave the music thing alone instead of poking at the scab; it's not fucking healthy for him, and Gerard… he worries, okay, most of his time and energy is spent worrying about his little brother. But apparently Mikey loves the scene too much to lift that last toehold, and Gerard is _all_ about keeping Mikey happy these days.

When he finally rolls out of bed at 1 pm, Gerard's presented anew with his… Angel Problem. Frank is curled up on sleeping bags with his wings tucked awkwardly on either side of his body; maybe he should look innocent and cherub-like, lying there, but in reality he just looks uncomfortably hot. He's yanked the not-halter top up around the wings, uncovering as much of his torso as possible.

'if it looks like i'm laughing i'm really just asking to leave,' says the small of Frank's back.

 _Jesus Christ_. It's been seven months and four and a half days since Gerard had a drink or did a line, and that one little sentence brings it all back with a vengeance. He scrubs a hand over his face and stumbles into the bathroom. 

It should feel like a victory; the people in his group at AA tell him it is. The face in the bathroom mirror, though, looks anything but triumphant. Gerard grimaces and scrubs his hair back as fast as he can, eyes averted.

Frank's awake when he comes out, and is – "Hey!" – tearing the sheet off the window. "Not cool! Stoppit!"

Frank jumps nervously but doesn't obey. Dust swirls in the sudden flood of light as he rips the cloth free from the staples.

"Frank!" Gerard yells, his hands flailing uncertainly. Pretty much his only option is to grab Frank's wings, and he can't quite bring himself to do it. "Frank, stoppit, dude!"

The angel looks over one shoulder. "Frank?" he asks. The up-turning inflection at the end sounds clumsy and over-exaggerated, but his puzzled expression speaks well enough.

"You're Frank. You're also a little dipshit, why'd you do that?" When Frank's expression doesn't change, Gerard sighs and points at Frank's chest, then his own. "You, Frank. Me, Gerard. Stop fucking up my room."

It takes another moment of deep thought, but then Frank's face clears and he smiles wide. He has really white teeth. "Frank," he says, pointing to his chest, then Gerard's, "Gerard. Frank, Gerard." He points to the door and makes the puzzled face again.

"Um. Mikey."

"Mikey," Frank repeats, and Gerard might be imagining things but for a second Frank looks kind of… affectionate. Then he turns back to the window and peers out. There's not much to see: the back yard hasn't been mowed in however long it's been since Mom shamed Mikey into it. Grass, weeds, and flowers crowd against the basement window. 

Frank, though, stares at them in amazement. He puts his hands on the sill and tips up onto his toes, his mouth open as he touches the cloudy glass.

Watching him, Gerard says, "Oh. Um. You wanna go out?" Another puzzled face makes him point to the window. "Out?"

Frank blinks, then points, too. "Out," he says firmly.

-o-

It's not the craziest thing Gerard's ever done – well, okay, yeah. Taking his tattooed angelic visitor out for a jaunt around the neighborhood in the middle of the day? Possibly craziest.

"Mikey's gonna kill me," he groans. Once he introduced the idea, though, Frank was determined: he kept trying to go up the basement stairs, or get the window open and climb out. Short of tying him up, there's no way Gerard can keep him in the basement and sooner or later even Mom is going to come down to investigate the weird thrashing noises.

So here he is, digging through Mikey's closet for belts; he's already laid out all of his own on the floor of his room. Frank sits impatiently on Mikey's bed, jiggling his feet and craning his neck at Mikey's window. He hasn't made any head fakes toward it yet, but Gerard has a feeling that it's just a matter of time.

"Alright already," he says, lurching back to his feet with a bunch of studded, sequined, and feathered – _seriously_ , Mikey? – belts laid over one arm. He takes Frank's wrist with his other hand and drags him back to his own room.

There, he's faced with a serious obstacle: for this to work, he needs to touch the wings.

"Can you, um." He half-gestures at Frank, trying to indicate that he should fucking _mantle_ the damn things already; Frank just stares at him blankly. "Okay. Um. Hold still. I really hope this isn't going to hurt."

He reaches out and puts a palm on the peak of one wing. It twitches under his hand a little and Gerard can feel the delicate bones underneath. _Bird bones are hollow_ , he thinks vaguely around the loud drum of his heart. They feel and look exactly like big bird wings, like a swan's, maybe, with the straight, long contour feathers stretched around Frank's torso and legs. Underneath his hand are smaller downy feathers…they're pretty warm.

Gerard takes his hand away and clutches it to his own chest. Frank's making his puzzled face again. Nothing else happens, though, so Gerard gingerly tries again, settling his fingers on the outer curve of one peak right where the down changes into harder flight feathers. He pushes gently, his stomach twisting in fear of a soft crack; then Frank moves the wing, shifting it down closer to his shoulder.

"Yeah! Yeah, now just – " Gerard hooks a belt in his mouth, teeth clenched in the pleather. He pushes as gently as possible until the wing barely peeks over Frank's shoulder, then hooks the belt across Frank's chest and up over the wing. He has to wrap both arms around Frank to blindly latch both ends together.

Frank's shirt is rucked up and the puzzled look has changed to outright bewilderment; but the wing stays in place, held there by the purple-sequined belt.

"Okay," Gerard says breathlessly. "You, uh, might look like a hunchback," a nervous giggle claws out of his throat, "but uh, I think this might work."

-o-

Six belts and a heavy trenchcoat later, Gerard leads Frank out of his house into the late afternoon sun. 

Frank really does look a bit like an overweight hunchback, and the very tips of his wings poke out the bottom of the trenchcoat. Plus, he's wearing pink slippers. Gerard spent five minutes putting various pairs of boots, sandals, and sneakers on Frank; he'd kicked them all off with a scowl until Gerard had crept upstairs to steal his mother's pair of old bathroom slippers. Those, apparently, had been acceptable. 

Still, he doesn't look freaky enough to warrant a police battalion or something. And the expression on his is totally worth it: Gerard has never seen anyone look that impressed by suburban New Jersey.

"So," he says, and realizes that he's gripping Frank by the hand. He uses that to turn them until they face the house. "This is our house. Where we – Mikey and I and Mom – live."

Frank's gaze takes in the spotty roof, the warped wood of the front porch; then he points and says, "What."

"Uh…a mailbox."

"Mailbox." Frank twists around without letting go of Gerard's hand and points at one of the cars parked on the street. "What."

"Car. Don't get in front of it, if it's moving."

Gerard had been scared that Frank would take off running down the street in excitement, but he seems content to walk beside Gerard getting the names of random shit. The one scare they have is the big black dog three houses down the street from Gerard's: it always charges out to the fence, spittle flying from its mouth. Frank startles away, eyes wide, and Gerard has to catch him around the waist to keep him from going into the street. He hurries them past the long fence and the bared teeth that snarl between posts. 

"You okay, dude?" he asks once they've left the dog behind. Frank nods, but he grips Gerard's hand a little tighter.

There's a big space between the fourth and fifth houses down that was once a community garden before the city shut it down. Now it's just overgrown. Gerard came here a few times in the last year, until a group of kids chose it as a hideout for pot-smoking. There'd been no hard feelings until one of them had recognized Gerard; the kid had been husky, dark-haired, and wearing a Marilyn Manson T-shirt. It hadn't ended well.

The place is empty, now. "Little fuckers must be in school," Gerard mutters approvingly.

"What little fuckers?"

Gerard halts, torn between delight (and seriously, how fast does an angel learn, because Frank's only been here, like, half a day, and he's already forming semi-full sentences) and alarm that his _angel_ just said 'fucker.' "Don't, um – that was good, Frank. Very good. Don't say that."

Frank makes his Puzzled Face. Gerard sighs. "Nevermind. C'mon."

A grove of trees stand in a semi-neat circle. Off-shoots from their roots spear up out of the ground and cigarette butts litter the ground, but other than that the area between the trees is empty. Gerard kicks the butts away to sit down on the bare dirt; Frank attempt to copy and immediately falls over.

"Oh, shit!" Gerard lurches back up. "With the wings, shit, you can't sit down – you okay?"

"Shit," Frank says, seeming a little perturbed but otherwise unharmed. He looks past Gerard's hovering shoulders at the sky. Gerard sighs and sits back down near Frank's head; between him and Mikey and _The Venture Brothers_ , he has a feeling he's already lost the 'no-swearing' battle.

Frank wiggles, tipping his head back in the dirt with one eye closed against the sunlight; his other eye studies Gerard intently. Gerard's fingers curl in the torn hem of his T-shirt. "Hey."

"Hey," Frank says, but it's not an echo. There's a new awareness in his face – less lemur-like, more… something else. He lifts one hand and circles it in the air. "What."

Gerard follows the orbit of Frank's finger around the circle of tree trunks. "Iunno. I think somebody wanted to use this as, like, a neighborhood meeting place. Or a ritual altar." He giggles, then stops short. "Oh. Awkward. You, uh, probably don't wanna hear about ritual sacrifices, huh?"

They sit for a while in silence, listening to the distant traffic and the screech of summer insects; the air feels cooler here in the space between the trees. Once Gerard's mind sets off he can't stop it, though. "I, uh, haven't ritually sacrificed anything but I did bite a Bible once. I don't know if that upsets you or not. And I've made some pretty questionable life choices." He rubs at his head; there's a headache wriggling to life behind his eyes. It's probably all the goddamned sunlight. "I used to have a rock band. That, y'know, tends to go hand-in-hand with the questionable life choices – not that that _excuses_ it, because they were my fucking choices, you know? I'm not shirking responsibility, here. I did some stupid stuff and I let people down – " His eyes involuntarily drift back towards the house. "So, y'know, just so you're aware. I might not be the best influence on you."

Frank blinks.

"Did you understand _any_ of that?"

Frank shakes his head.

"Right, okay. Great." He suddenly feels exhausted. "Why are you here? Is the world coming to an end and you're like, the messenger?"

Frank's head tips further until his face is almost completely upside down. "How would the world come to an end?"

"Okay, _dude_. Are you just, like, picking all of this up as you go?"

From this angle, Frank's frown looks like a smile. "Iunno."

"Is there anything you do know? Like, what're you here for? What do you want? Why do you have tattoos of my _stuff_?"

Frank stares at him, eyes wide. "Iunno," he whispers.

Gerard unfolds his legs with a snap. His heart beats painfully in his temples, and for a moment he just wants Frank to go back to wherever he came from and stop making Gerard think too hard about, like, existential metaphysics and his fucking place in the world.

"Gerard?" Frank pipes when he climbs to his feet. Then, "Gee!"

It sounds so genuinely frightened that Gerard can't help but turn back. Frank's still on his back, struggling like a turtle to roll over or sit up. Gerard rubs a hand over his face and goes back to him. "Calm down. It's okay, just hold still and – here."

Frank grabs Gerard's hands tight and doesn't let go, even after Gerard has heaved him back to his feet. "Sorry," he says urgently, his gaze fixed on Gerard's face. "Sorry. Gee."

 _Every day, a new way to feel like an asshole_. "It's – don't worry about it, okay?" Frank looks like a sad little kid, all big doe eyes and Gerard attempts to hook an arm around his shoulders; he can only get halfway, due to the wings. "Shit, man, this feels like a cheesy Disney movie. 'A Boy and His Angel.' Fuck."

"Fuck," Frank agrees, and Gerard sighs. He steers them homeward.

When they get back, Mikey's home, and Ray Toro is with him.

-o-

Ray takes it well. Relatively speaking.

When Gerard unhooks the belts (Mikey throws a minor hissy fit about one of them being his _good_ belt, like he's got them graded), Frank shakes his wings out with a soft grunt of relief. Ray backs away to the nearest wall, his eyes huge. 

"Well," he croaks after a minute.

For his part, Frank takes to Ray pretty quick. After a few moments of cautious shyness, Frank emerges from his hiding place behind Gerard and shoves his hands into Ray's hair. 

Ray freezes. "Well, then," he says after a moment. "Where'd he come from?"

"He says he doesn't know," Gerard answers, trying not to giggle. Frank bats Ray's 'fro around between his hands, fascinated.

"What're you gonna do with him?"

"That's what we're trying to figure out," Mikey says.

"Hi," Frank says.

Ray's eyes get a little bigger. "Hi."

Frank steps back and points at Ray's hair. "Cool."

"…thanks."

When he gets past his own initial freakout, Ray is everything that Gerard remembers: within minutes he's started a list. "Okay, so we've got to find a place for him to live."

"I was thinking a cabin?" Gerard supplies. Mikey is sitting on Gerard's bed teaching Frank how to make PB&J sandwiches. Frank has his chin hooked over Mikey's shoulder and Gerard's fingers twitch with the sudden desire to sketch or paint this moment – there's something so mesmerizing about the careful swipes of the butter knife across the bread, the absolute concentration on both their faces.

"Do you think," Ray says, a bit of the nervous awe back in his voice, "he's some kind of guardian angel?"

Gerard bites his lip, watching the way Frank's wing curls over Mikey's head and shoulders. "Maybe."

"He doesn't have any papers," Ray comments, adding to his list. "Birth certificate, social security card, none of that. If he's going to be here long-term, that could be a problem."

It hadn't occurred to Gerard to ask, but he suddenly swallows hard. "Frank."

Frank looks up. He has peanut butter smeared all the way from his mouth to his cheekbone. Gerard smiles despite the unpleasant wriggle in his stomach. "Are you gonna be here for a while, do you think?"

That makes Mikey look up, too. They both fix their eyes on Frank; he blinks. "Iunno," he says.

"Do you _want_ to stay?" Gerard asks, his gaze fixed on Frank's shoulder.

"Yes," Frank answers immediately. "Yeah, Gee."

Gerard sits back, relieved. "Okay. Cool."

-o-

Ray has his own condo outside Trenton. They drive Frank there in the back of Ray's car, tucked underneath a blanket. Mikey has to sit back there with him to keep him calm: Frank doesn't like the car much and keeps trying to sit up or open the door. Finally he squirms one arm underneath Mikey's knee and buries his face in his thigh. 

Night's fallen on New Jersey and Ray's face is sporadically lit by street lamps. "Thanks for doing this, Ray," Gerard murmurs, feeling oddly hushed. It's not like someone's going to hear him from inside the car and, like, call the Angel Retrieval Task Force.

"It's an angel, man. I'd worry about getting struck by lightning if I didn't."

"Fucking – exactly. See, Mikey, _Ray's_ worried about getting smote."

Mikey pulls a face and pets Frank's hair. "Frank's not going to smite us. Are you, Frank?"

"Don' like the car," Frank says, muffled.

"Seriously, though," Ray goes on, glancing in the rearview mirror. "This is – this is incredible. This is – _God_ , and Heaven, and Hell, and Milton, you know? Whether or not he knows exactly where he came from, there's something else, Gee. This is fucking _proof_ that there's something beyond our world!"

Gerard says, "You just ran a stop sign."

Ray's eyes widen, but not for that reason. "Oh, shit. I stopped going to church."

"Huh. Well, Mikey and I never went, so I think you're safe."

In the back, there's a sudden, unmistakable noise. Ray and Gerard both freeze. "Mikey," Gerard says, "did he just throw up?"

"On my _shoes_ ," Mikey declares, miserable.

Angel vomit smells as bad as the normal kind. They park and vacate the car in a hurry. "I'll clean it out tomorrow," Ray mumbles, glancing down the street. "Okay, let's go."

"Hurts," Frank groans as they hustle him along wrapped in the blanket.

"I know, Frankie," Gerard murmurs, rubbing his shoulders. Mikey walks behind them, squelching. "Guess you really don't like cars, huh?"

"No," Frank says, and claps a hand over his mouth. Gerard nearly lunges away but realizes at the last moment that if he does, the wings might pop free from the blanket. Instead he grimly hangs on and takes a round of vomit in the leg. 

By the time they get inside Ray's place, it's 1 am and they're all a little smelly. It has the taint of familiarity about it; Gerard has shadowed this doorway before with his own drunken stomach acrobatics. 

The various instruments strewn around Ray's condo are also painfully familiar. Gerard knows that Mikey still has his bass tucked away in his closet; Ray, though, has three guitars in his _living room_ , and sheet music tucked behind the spice rack in the kitchen. Gerard's hands burrow into his jacket. "So," he says, "what've you been up to?"

His voice sounds hollow and accusatory even to his own ears. In the middle of laying sheets over the foldout bed, Ray pauses. "I'm sorry," Gerard says immediately.

Ray sighs. "Don't be sorry, Gerard. There's this guy – he's a drummer. We've been talking about starting a band."

It's a blow to the gut. Gerard reels for a moment, his hands making fists in his pockets. He imagines punching Ray, Ray who he's known since high school, who will still show up out of the blue when Gerard calls him for help.

"That's cool," he manages. _It's been almost a year. What'd you expect?_ All the anger rushes out of him just as fast as it came. He's really glad that Mikey is in the other room showing Frank how to brush his teeth; sometimes very late at night, he'll hear faint strumming chords from Mikey's room, and he knows Mikey hasn't given up hope. It makes Gerard shake with fear: the idea that Mikey's still got some stake in the band, something left for him to lose, and what'll do to him when he does.

"What about you?" Ray asks. "What are you doing these days – besides rescuing stray angels?" His wide smile looks forced, maybe a little guilty. 

"Oh, you know. Stuff." _Sitting in the basement, getting soggy, wasting any chance I had left_. "It's good, though," he finally manages, because Ray is _Ray_ and Gerard owes him so much. "It's really good that you're still playing."

Ray's hair bobs with his nod; he turns a pillowcase over and over in his hands. Gerard clears his throat. "You, uh, got some sweats that I could borrow?"

As he follows Ray down the hall, Gerard glances into the bathroom. Mikey is showing Frank how to fucking _floss_ and Gerard has to clap a hand over his mouth and hurry on into Ray's room so Mikey won't hear him laugh. 

-o-

It's like a sleepover, the four of them staying at Ray's, but without pillow fights. Gerard wouldn't be opposed to starting one, but it's 3 am and Ray and Mikey are responsible adults with jobs that they have to wake up for in, like, three hours. It turns out that Ray has been filling in as recording guitarist for new Eyeballs bands, so he and Mikey can even fucking carpool to work tomorrow. They sleep out on the hideaway so they can get up tomorrow morning without waking up everyone else.

So Gerard finds himself in Ray's bed beside Frank, who's stretched out on his stomach with one wing slung over the side and the other tucked on the mattress between their bodies. 

They've got a place for him to stay, but it's not like they can just leave him with Ray. Besides the financial strain of feeding, clothing, and housing a whole other person, Frank had appeared in _their_ kitchen: Gerard's pretty sure that makes him their responsibility.

The tattoos drift into Gerard's head for about the fiftieth time that day. _My responsibility_ , he thinks and glances over at Frank. There's the glint of eyes looking back and Gerard startles a bit. "Hey."  
  
"Hey," Frank replies. There's that soft, strange curl in his voice again. _Enigmatic_ , Gerard thinks. That's what Frank is, with his wings and borrowed words and wide eyes that look both childish and _knowing_. "Okay?" Frank asks.

"Sure. I'm fine." Gerard tugs the thin sheet up to his chin and startles again when his toes bumps Frank's wing. "I'm just thinking," he stammers on, as much to distract himself as anything, "I should probably get a job."

The thought has occurred to him a couple of times but only as a half-formed fetus of an idea. Now it's out there, hovering in the space above him.

"Job?" Frank asks.

"For money." My Chem will only pay the bills for so long; it's already paid for a trip to rehab when his first try at quitting hadn't worked, and Mikey's medical bills after he'd – when he'd – 

Anyway. Gerard can't work around people – well, maybe, like, nuns or something. He could work as a gardener, in a nunnery where no one ever listened to music or watched the TV; but nowhere that someone might recognize him as that guy that didn't, couldn't, keep it together. That couldn't _make it_.

"Hey." Frank slides a hand underneath the wing and across the space between them to touch Gerard's shoulder. "What job?"

"Um. Iunno. I'm not super-qualified for much." Gerard shifts in the bed, idly running his legs back and forth between the sheets; his toes bump Frank again but he's more prepared for it this time. "I, um. Used to have this band. Mikey and Ray were in it, too, and this other guy – anyway, it kinda fell apart. You know, that's life, thing's like that happen, you've got to move on." The hollow mantra sucks the air out of his lungs. "So, y'know. My resumé's gonna be, like, a paragraph."

Shit, he could always go back to Cartoon Network or something. It'd be just like before: Mikey at Eyeball, Ray playing the local circuit, and Gerard back in a basement somewhere, tracing the fucking _Aqua Teen Hunger Force_. Like My Chem never happened. Gerard shivers and tugs the sheets tighter.

"Gerard? Gee?" Franks small hand curves suddenly over Gerard's chin, rubbing his mouth. Gerard freezes; but Frank's face is open and bent only in concern. "Okay?"

"Um." Gerard wonders if he should give a lecture; take Frank's hand away and say, _Now Frankie, guys don't touch each other that way in bed. Unless they're, you know. Gay, or in prison. Or both._

But then he'd probably have to explain gay sex to his angel, and that's just not a conversation that Gerard's ready for. Ever. 

"Yeah," he finally answers. He can feel his own breath hitting Frank's hand and rebounding back onto his skin. "I'm okay, Frankie."

Frank smiles wide. "Cool." He removes his hand and wriggles deeper into the bed.

Gerard drops off quickly, too. When he wakes, it's to the soft sounds of Mikey and Ray eating breakfast. It takes him a moment to realize that he's kicked off all the covers and Frank's wing is draped haphazardly over him; in the dawn, it's dazzling white.

He takes a few deep breaths and turns his head. Feathers brush against his cheek as he moves. Frank's face is tucked against Gerard's arm, but Gerard can see the small tattoo of a vampire child on his shoulder, bright lurid blood splashed across its pale mouth.

-o-

The heat wave rolls on, smudging the skyline a sickly tan and making the pavement sweat. In the late morning, before it gets too hot to go outside for the rest of the day, Gerard straps Frank up again – under his shirt this time. He can't help but giggle as he drags the leather belt across Frank's bare chest.

"What?" Frank's eyes sharpen. He pokes at Gerard's stomach. "What? What!"

"You look – oh, God, you look like the fucking p – pat – patron saint," he puts his hands on his knees, trying to breathe, "patron saint of S&M!"

"Who's Ess and Emm?"

Gerard laughs until he falls over, curling into a ball as Frank drops down on top of him yelling, "What, what?! Motherfucker! Bitch! Tell me!"

Not far from Ray's house, a little green park pushes for breathing space among the buildings: it's well-maintained, full of kids, and safe enough that the drug dealers only come out at night. Gerard keeps one hand firmly clamped on Frank's elbow as he steers them in that direction. For good reason: as soon as Frank sees the swarm of kids playing on the jungle gym he kind of _squeaks_ and makes a run to join them.

"Whoa! Whoa," Gerard gasps, snaking an arm low around Frank's waist. He's strapped the wings up much better and dressed Frank in a light-weight coat out of Ray's closet (rolling up the sleeves a good four inches). Still, a short guy with unnaturally broad shoulders in a tan trenchcoat might raise some eyebrows with the mothers who sit around the outside of the playground. 

"They look so _happy_ ," Frank breathes. His own face is sun-bright, his smile so open that it hurts. It's a good pain, though, and Gerard lets himself stare for a moment before he tugs Frank along the paved walking paths that intersect and arch among the grass.

They have another near miss when a stroller goes by and Frank _flips out_ over the baby. Gerard's pretty sure that the mother's going to call 911 on this weird guy making incoherent noises of delight over her baby's sleeping head; but she only looks at Gerard and asks, "Are you his helper?"

It takes Gerard a moment to figure out that she thinks Frank is mentally challenged. Which… okay, is close enough for him to say, "Yes, ma'am," and not feel too bad about it.

"I want one of those," Frank announces when the stroller and the mother pull away. "Can I have a baby, Gerard?"

"Not without some pretty major surgery, Frankie."

When the sun gets high overhead, Frank turns his closed eyes to it like a sunflower seeking food. He lets Gerard tug him along, feet stumbling and his sweaty hand tucked tight in Gerard's palm.


	2. Birth of a Five-Legged Beast

Gerard heaves the door to Ray's condo and holds it open with his hip. "I'm here! I'm here, Mikey!"

There's no answer. Mikey had called him six times on the subway until Gerard lost signal; when he'd come out the other side of the tunnel, four new ones had popped up. There's this event at work; he's been talking about it all week, ducking back home to get his A+ belt and assembling outfits on Ray's couch and then blankly contemplating them for five minutes before wandering away and leaving the clothes there. It looks like multiple people dissolved while sitting on the couch, leaving only their clothes behind.

Ray hasn't said anything yet, but Gerard's sure that some unpleasant conversation will happen soon: they've been pretty much living at his place for a month. Sure, they contribute to rent and they're hardly ever all home at the same time – Gerard has a night shift – but still. The place is bursting at the seams.

So far, Gerard hasn't been able to think of an alternative. He and Mikey don't make enough money to find a safe place of their own, and they need all three of them around to watch Frank. He's been… antsy, lately. Cabin feverish, always wanting to go out and pouting when they tell him he can't. Gerard takes him for walks in the park whenever he's home, but it seems like those brief glimpses of the outside world only work Frank up _more_. The others do the same when they have the energy; after a full day (or night) of work, though, none of them have the energy to chase birds and make sure that Frank's wings aren't popping free of their restraints (which he also hates – they chafe). 

They've been limping by, though – until today. Today, Gerard got pulled into a meeting with his boss and told that he lacks focus; Gerard told him to get fucked, and got escorted from the building. With his luck, it'll show up on the news radar: ' _Former MCR frontman can't even stock paper_.' 

Then a couple scene kids – two guys and a girl – had spotted him on the subway and gushed at him for the full train ride about how _Three Cheers_ was so fucking cool and that _cover_ and why didn't they have any shows? They had all this great music, and they weren't doing live shows, that sucked, why not? There had been no escape as they hurtled through the underground tunnels, and Gerard's face aches with the twitching smile he'd forced onto his cheeks.

They'd been disappointed in him, he could tell. It wasn't anything overt, but as he'd slid out the door with a quick apology about fish and warm temperatures that even _he_ hadn't understood, Gerard had caught a flicker in the girl's eyes. Just a little moment of _Oh, that's how he_ really _is._

He'd gotten lost on the walk home after that, feet wandering with his brain about monasteries or isolated tree farms where he could make his new home. By the time he gets to Ray's condo, he's about a half hour late and Mikey's long gone.

They try to avoid leaving Frank alone for long – warnings about police or mobs don't scare him, and he's not listening to Gerard as much as he used to. He always wants to know _why_ , _why_ can't he go out, _why_ can't he talk to the neighbors, _why_ can't he learn how to throw knives. Steven Seagal throws knives. Steven Seagal is cool. (Ray had actually cursed Gerard out for letting him watch that one.)

Gerard sighs, dumping a pencil sharpener that he stole from the office on top of some old pizza boxes. "Yeah, _that'll_ show 'em," he mutters, and pokes at the dishes in the sink. Ray has made a little polite noise at their number and supreme filthiness; Gerard's been meaning to clean them, really, but every morning he comes home so _brain-numbed_ that he mostly just sits in front of the TV with Frank, answering his endless questions with grunts. He could never make it as a vampire, man, the hours suck too hard; he usually winds up sleeping through most of the day curled up on the couch beside Frank.

Christ, this is his life. Gerard leans against the fridge and rubs a hand over his face. He's going to have to find a new job. The paper company had at least kept him in the back room, at night, where he wouldn't have to face any real people. Apparently the job market sucks for regular people, which is exactly what he is now. Shit. _Mom's basement was better than this._

As soon as he thinks it, Gerard feels guilty. Without them, Frank would starve or get locked up in an experimental facility; and despite his exhausting enthusiasm, Frank is a joy to have. A strange, hyperactive joy, with smiles that – God, it sounds corny inside his own head – are pretty much the highlight of Gerard's day.

Gerard pushes away from the sink. "Frank? Frankie, where you at, dude?" He cringes, thinking about how Ray has been trying to teach Frank some actual fucking grammar; it's been an uphill battle, considering that his starter kit was Mikey and Gerard.

Frank's parked in front of the TV, big surprise – he's kind of addicted to daytime soaps. Ray worries endlessly about what it'll do to his sense of right and wrong, even went so far as to bar Frank from the TV between the hours of 11 and 4. That was one of the first direct commands that Frank disobeys; Gerard counts it as the moment things started to go awry. "Hey," he greets.

Frank twists around and pokes his nose over the top of the couch. "Hey. You're really fucking late. Mikey was blowing a shit."

"Taking a shit. Or blowing a gasket." Gerard nudges one of Frank's wings aside and squeezes onto the sofa's arm. "If he was blowing a shit then he'd probably have, like cholera or something." 

"Whatever," Frank mumbles. Crumbs litter his shirt, and the telltale scent of peanut butter wafts in the air around him. The sideways glance that he sends to Gerard is familiar, too: Frank reads their moods wrong most of the time, but it isn't from lack of trying. It just doesn't come naturally to him the same way that he can talk or operate Ray's complex collection of remote controls or, to the horror of Ray and his furniture, throw knives. "You okay?"

"I'm good," Gerard says automatically; but that's just fucking counter-productive. Frank will never get better if they go around lying to him all the time. "I'm not good," he admits after a moment. "I got fired."

Frank sits up. "You got fired? Where?"

"At – oh, no, Frank," he catches Frank's grasping hands, "not _fire_ -fire. I lost my job."

Frank frowns, his hands still caught in Gerard's; he twists the grip around to hold Gerard's fingers. "At the shitty paper warehouse?"

"Yup." Gerard squeezes Frank's hand and lets go.

"Good!" Frank chirps, a smile climbing onto his face. He sees Gerard's expression and the smile tips straight off the other side. "Not good. I – you don't like the shitty paper warehouse."

"No, but I like money. I like food, and so do you, fatso." There's a little softness growing around Frank's stomach and Gerard pokes it. Frank squeals in delight then claps a hand over his mouth; his own sharp, loud giggle always startles the hell out of him.

Of course that devolves into a tickling match across the couch and the floor. Mikey, the bastard traitor, has taught Frank about the pressure points on Gerard's knees: he goes for them right away and Gerard shrieks, kicking.

They reach a panting stalemate on the floor with Gerard kind of curled up and Frank balanced above him on Gerard's bent legs. He wiggles his toes a little, pinching Frank's shirt threateningly close to his stomach; Frank responds by curling a hand over Gerard's knee and grinning. "Mutual assured deconstruction."

"DES-truction, Frankie. Truce?"

"Truce." Frank releases Gerard's knee and braces his arms on the floor on either side. "Could I get a job at the shitty paper warehouse?"

Gerard stares up at the ceiling and straightens his legs, lifting Frank up and away with his feet. It used to be so much easier to distract him. "No."

"Why not?"

"Wings, Frankie."

Frank's shoulders, and wings, hitch up a bit. "That's what you always say," he grumps, like it's somehow _Gerard's_ fault that the world at large would freak way the hell out if an angel popped up working retail in New Jersey.

"It's always true." Gerard rolls up to his knees and shuffles back over to the couch to settle among Frank's bread crumbs. "Don't worry, okay? I'll find another job."

Frank doesn't follow; he crosses his arms. "What about me? What _can_ I do?"

"You can watch TV? They've got, um – oh, fucking sweet, they've got a _Future is Wild_ marathon! I love those squibbon things!"

"I always watch TV, Gee." Frank throws his arms up and Gerard cringes momentarily in fear for Ray's nearby floor lamp; but Frank's gotten a lot better at keeping the wing gestures to a minimum. "I wanna do something else."

That doesn't make them any less noticeable, or the world any less terrifying. Most of Gerard's nightmares have to do with someone finding out and dragging Frank away in, like, black helicopters. Or coming home from work to find him dissected right there in the living room.

Gerard curls up around the hard pang in his stomach. "I know you do, Frankie. We all do."

-o-

He falls asleep with his head tilted back against the couch and wakes up with a crick in his neck and the soft murmur of voices in his ears. Ray perches the other couch arm, a carton of chow mien cupped in his hand and his shoulders bent forward. Mikey's there, too, having moved the coffee table aside to sit on the floor by Frank's feet.

" – and we got handed this bear suit," Ray says, the corners of his mouth twitching, "and we had to decide which one of us was actually going to wear it. So, Gee had this, like, die. A Dungeons and Dragons die, you know?"

"No," Frank says, rapt.

Gerard rolls his neck surreptitiously while Ray explains and sucks his lip in between his teeth. Eyes are not necessary for him to know that Mikey is looking in his direction; by the time he looks back, though, Mikey has gone back to his own carton of sweet and sour. 

His lip stings when Gerard bites harder. He inches his foot across the carpet to poke his brother's leg. He's so, so tired of disappointing people; Mikey's still the hardest to take, because he's so careful not to show it and the kindness hurts like nothing else. Not after all the shit that Gerard has put Mikey through.

Mikey looks up, curling his mouth into an O around a hot bite of food. It makes Gerard smile a little and Mikey automatically smiles back a little; it's been a while since they've hung out, Gerard realizes, they've both been so busy acting like grownups (or failing at it, in Gerard's case). 

Years of shared rooms and stages lie between them, when they were too lazy or drowned out by a crowd to communicate aloud. Gerard silently asks with his eyebrows if work was okay and Mikey thinks then shrugs and goes back to his food. Which means that it wasn't, really, but he doesn't want to make Gerard feel bad.

It doesn't work. After a few more moments Gerard gets up and goes into the kitchen to lean against the sink.

It's Ray who finally follows him. Gerard guiltily switches on the faucet and tries to figure out an angle of attack on all those dirty dishes. Ray doesn't say anything for a moment, which gives Gerard's brain time to come up with even more horrible ways this conversation can go, moving from _So you lost your menial no-brainer job?_ to _Mikey might lose_ his _job now, too, thanks_ to _Me and my new band just got signed_.

What Ray says is, "Hey, um…did Frank's tattoos come like that?"

Gerard pauses with a plate hovering under the faucet; it catches water, pooling, until heat runs across his knuckles and he drops it with a hiss. "No. I mean. Yes. I think so. I looked."

Ray does that thing where he glances at Gerard like he knows he's lying, but lets it slide; he always let Gerard get by with so much, until he didn't anymore. It's a good thing that he and Ray don't have time to hang out all that much, they'd probably slip right back into old patterns and then where would they be?

"I was just wondering," Ray says, bringing Gerard's wandering mind back around, "because that seems really significant, you know? More than just him showing up in your kitchen. The tattoos, they're like… a marker, you know?" He edges around Gerard and pulls a 7-up from the fridge, pops the top with a hiss. "Like it wasn't an accident – like he was meant for _you_ , specifically."

Hot water rolls over the plates, steaming; Gerard's fingers are lobster-pink. "Okay," Gerard says, hesitant. That seems pretty obvious, but Ray has a tendency to lay his entire mental process out precisely in the order he thought it. Unlike Mikey, who will finish a conversation he started yesterday or Gerard, who will forget the conversation he's having _now_. Matt had nearly lost his mind with the two of them; Ray had found ways to cope. That, Gerard guesses, is the difference between him never seeing Otter and standing in Ray's apartment washing dishes.

Sure enough, the next thing out of Ray's mouth is, "They're your lyrics, right? The stuff on Frank?"

Gerard shuts off the water. "No."

"Gee." There's the end of his leash: Ray will let him get by with so much until he doesn't anymore. "Come on. I know your stuff when I see it. And the pictures, they're definitely yours. So."

"So?" Gerard wipes his hands on his shirt and doesn't turn around.

"So…" Ray trails off lamely. He can call Gerard on his shit, but he can't fix it.

When the silence stretches out, Gerard says, "I need to find a new job."

Ray sighs. "Yeah."

He starts to leave, but the shuffle of his feet makes Gerard finally turn. "Thanks for letting us stay here, Ray. I know – I mean, yeah. It must suck."

Ray stops and blinks at him. "It doesn't. Why would it suck?"

Gerard gestures around them, taking in the dishes and the empty pizza boxes, the scarred-up furniture that has fallen victim to their knife-throwing angel. "We've kinda torn the place apart."

Ray glances around and shrugs. "We lived in a van for three years, man. This is – it's kind of nice, you know? Like old times."

He glances at Gerard and leaves quickly after saying that, and for good reason. "Like old times," Gerard whispers quietly, bitterly, to the kitchen. Why won't everyone just let it _go_?

But then he wanders out to stand in the doorway and he can see Mikey and Frank in the living room, and Ray rejoining them. Frank has obviously picked up on Mikey's unhappiness – for some weird reason he's better at deciphering Mikey's moods than anyone else's, which is only weird in that it's Mikey for Chrissake – and is trying to cheer him up by sticking a chopstick up Mikey's nose. Ray is laughing so hard that he sways on his feet while Mikey twists from side to side, his face pinched with exasperation and amusement.

It's too strange and wonderful for Gerard to turn away, despite the cold lump of unease in his stomach; he watches the three of them, Ray and Mikey and their Frank their Inexplicable Angel.

-o-

July rolls into August. A happy side effect of the heat wave is that Frank stops asking to go outside quite so much. That means, though, that he's bouncing off the walls instead.

"He has so much _energy_ ," Ray complains one night after Gerard staggers home looking like the loser in a water fight. Or a sweat fight, to be more accurate.

They start taking him out at night – not often, of course, this is fucking Jersey, but Ray's in a pretty good neighborhood. Sometimes Gerard will come home from job scrounging to find Mikey and Frank taking a walk around the block, Frank running over to poke at plants and telephone poles then hurrying back to Mikey's side.

That doesn't worry him; what does is that Ray starts finding indoor activities for Frank and, this being Ray, they all involve the guitar. 

The first time Gerard walks in to find Frank hunched over a guitar, he might as well be a husband arriving home early to find his wife in bed with the entire Dallas Cowboys defensive line. That's how it feels to him, standing in the doorway and seeing Frank perched on the edge of the couch with his wings stretched over the side and a nice-looking Gibson cradled in his lap.

Ray has the good grace to look a little nervous; Mikey doesn't even glance up, just reaches out to nudge Frank's fingers on the fret. "Like that. Okay, now take the pick and pull it down over the strings like this…"

An A minor chord plinks out of the guitar one note at a time, and Frank's face _changes_ , wonder spilling out of every pore. "Cool."

Gerard goes out onto Ray's balcony. It's just a little nook, really, but it's got a neat view of all the houses on the hillside. It makes him think of some Italian villa or something, with the homes all open to the air; he lights up a cigarette and thinks about all the places he's seen around the world. The people he's known.

The door behind him hisses in its runner and Gerard can't stop himself. "Why can't you just let it _go_?"

He pinches his eyes shut immediately. Mikey doesn't say anything back but the negative space where he says nothing feels cold against Gerard's back. He never has to say his part of an argument aloud; Gerard knows him well enough to fill in the silence and guess Mikey's unspoken responses. That's the real shitty part about arguing with Mikey.

For once, though, Mikey answers out loud: "Why can't you?"

Behind them, a C chord drifts out the door behind them. Mikey waits for a while, but when Gerard doesn't answer, he goes back inside. 

Cigarette smoke drifts like malaise, clogging the back of Gerard's throat; he stubs it out viciously and hisses in pain. He can never get a full breath these days.

By the next day, though, with a full night's sleep, he has a different outlook: if they're going to do this, goddammit, they're going to do this right. Gerard might be unemployed and washed up, but his angel is going to have the best fucking musical taste of _any_ angel, ever, period.

He makes a trip home – startling a bit when he realizes it's been months since he was last there – to forage for supplies and returns with a mighty harvest; it's probably overkill but Gerard's not taking any chances. Add in Ray's expansive collection of thrash metal and that's a good start; he also spends most of his first and last paycheck from data-entry hell on chips and soda (non-caffeinated, they've had a few bad experiences), and some cupcakes. Cupcakes are key.

Mikey's on his way out when Gerard walks in; he sees the spread and blinks in recognition. "Um."

Plastic crinkles under Gerard's fingers; he's got his chin hooked over a CD and he can only hope that it's not _Mellon Collie_ because it's slipping and that'd be his last copy. "He's bound to discover MTV soon."

The CD under his chin slips free and Mikey reaches out to catch it; he misses and the case shatters open on Ray's hardwood floor, its CD rolling out. Gerard squints at the spinning blur of colors. "Madonna. I think?"

Mikey shrugs. "I've got a bunch, if it's scratched."

"You besmirch my fucking honor. I have my own backups."

Mikey's mouth deepens on each corner; he's probably thinking about that time they got high and danced around the basement to _Vogue_. "Shut up," Gerard says, but he's laughing.

"I didn't say a-nything," Mikey singsongs and slips out the door past Gerard. "Good luck with your preemptive strike. Shock and awe him."

Gerard leans out the door to shout after him. "Think what could have happened if I hadn't done this for you! You could have liked _post-rock_ , Mikey! _POST-ROCK_."

Mikey doesn't turn back, but Gerard can tell by the duck of his head that he'd grinning as he walks away. It leaves Gerard hanging in the doorway for a moment, staring after him.

Frank wanders out of the bedroom in a pair of pajama bottoms; when he spots Gerard, he stops and grins hugely. "What?" Gerard asks.

"What?" Frank asks back.

"You're smiling." He's too happy to feel very self-conscious, but the way Frank is staring at him, bright-eyed and showing all of his perfect white teeth, would make anyone… not _uneasy_ , but maybe a bit nervous.

" _You're_ smiling," Frank replies, his eyes turning sly.

Gerard attempts to flip him off and almost drops another CD. "No more repeating, now, I mean it."

"Anybody want a peanut?" Frank yells, and runs into the other room giggling.

He comes back in a little while, presumably after he realizes that Gerard isn't chasing him. By then Gerard has most of his brilliant trap laid out; Frank falls straight into the snare. "Cupcakes!"

"Yep," Gerard says, loading Journey into Ray's stereo.

Steve Perry's warbling tenor sifts out from the speakers, curling in the air like a cat. Frank pauses mid-bite; a dab of pink frosting decorates the tip of his nose. "Whassa?"

Gerard takes a deep breath and starts his monologue. "The beginning of your journey." It's a terrible pun, but Frank doesn't have to know that

It's been a while; a few unfortunate gaps in his music library gives Gerard pause, but he perseveres. He steers them from the hallowed grounds of Zeppelin and Queen to second wave Brit invasion, touching quickly on Sid Vicious – just to give Frank the option, you know, because some people dig the whole nihilistic self-destruction thing as an aesthetic – before diving into The Clash, Sex Pistols and the Ramones – a bullseye there, Frank doesn't even need to be taught how to headbang – and drifting leisurely on into the Smiths. Gerard gets a little sidetracked there, watching Frank's slack, mesmerized face and reliving the first time he ever heard _The Queen is Dead_. They wind up listening to the whole album sitting on the floor, Gerard slipping in bursts of narration about ideological stances and acoustic rhythms.

When he lurches back to the wheel it's for a triple-combo-knockout punch of _The Wall_ , _Machina/The Machines of God_ , and _Back in Black_.

At some point, probably around when Brian Johnson starts squealing about rolling thunder, Frank bodily drags Gerard up by his arm. Frank's already sweaty: he'd started kind of jumping around during "My Sharona" and hasn't really stopped

"Ray won't need the tethers tonight!" Gerard yells over the music. It's a goddamned good thing Ray doesn't live in an apartment.

"What?" Frank yells.

Gerard puts his hands on both sides of Frank's neck, pulls him in. "You'll be tired tonight," he says triumphantly into Frank's ear.

Frank's head turns a little; his lips press against the side of Gerard's mouth, quick and perfunctory. "Show me how to dance!"

Gerard laughs. "Oh, shit, man. If I'm teaching, you're screwed."

Of course, it's not like he can do much damage: Frank's current idea of dancing entails some pretty wild flailing and falling over a lot… he's never really found the right balance with his wings. Nor does he seem that concerned with actually taking Gerard's advice or adopting what few moves he can pass on. It's okay, though: the sun's stretched out across the floor and no one's watching but the two of them. Gerard doesn't even feel awkward about jumping up on the couch to strike a pose, hand fisted in front of his mouth around an invisible microphone.

When _Back in Black_ winds down, Gerard starts them in on contemporary artists: he pops in Thursday and tries not to think about the last time he saw Geoff.

Frank's finger jabs him in the side, sudden enough to make Gerard jump. "Jesus, Frankie – "

This kiss lasts long enough to actually register – it's more of a mash, really. Frank pushes their mouths together and holds them there with an arm hooked around Gerard's neck. When motor skills return, Gerard squirms away carefully, one limb and lip at a time. "Frankie. What. Are you. Um, doing?"

"Kissing," Frank murmurs. "Come back."

Gerard tilts his head back and Frank's lips graze his chin. "Wait. Um. Frankie."

Frank leans back, too, confusion settling on his sharp features. "Am I doing it wrong?"

"How do you – you can't _know_ this, how are…" Gerard's capacity of speech stumbles off to curl up in the corner whimpering.

Without letting go of Gerard's neck, Frank leans back a little further and peers down at their bodies. "It's right, isn't it? This is what Noah did to Luke, and he kissed back." He leans back in and frowns up at Gerard. "Get with the fucking program, Gee."

Gerard's speech capacity twitches feebly. "No-ah…?"

"Noah Mayer. He's on _As The World Turns_." Frank's eyes light up and under Gerard's palm (which has somehow settled against Frank's side), his ribcage expands with a huge indrawn breath. "Luke was working at the TV station, and Noah showed up to intern. Luke's gay, and so's Noah, but he didn't know it when they met so Noah hooked up with Luke's best friend Maddie, but Luke liked him too, so when he walked in on them fucking, he got all upset, and Noah tried to say sorry because he thought Luke was jealous over _Maddie_ , but Luke told him that he liked _him_ , instead. And then there was this thing with a tie and Noah's dad who's a colonel of something and a serious dick, and Noah wound up kissing him. Luke, I mean. Not the dad." Frank wrinkles his nose. "That'd be gross."

"Uh," Gerard says.

Frank waits, but when the sun-filled silence rolls on, his eyebrows draw slowly together. "Are you – you're not confused about your sexuality, are you? Because that would suck. Noah was all sad, and so was Luke."

"No," Gerard manages. "Bi."

"Cool!" Frank chirps and goes for Gerard's mouth again.

Speech remains a distant impossibility. Gerard summons up evasive maneuvers that he hasn't used since that time in Philadelphia when he and Ray actually had to run from a crowd of fans. "Gee?" Frank asks, his hands wobbling uncertainly in midair.

"That's not – " Gerard puts some space between them; his lips tingle and he's just off-balance enough to wonder whether Frank's spit has, like, magical properties or something. He feels hot, flushed, obvious.

"Are you okay? You look kinda…" Frank waggles his fingers. 

Okay. Okay. He's been half-expecting something like this would happen. Well, maybe not _exactly_ like this, not the part where Frank kissed _him_ , Jesus, but he'd found Frank watching _Body Heat_ last week with his face, like, five inches from the screen. "Alright. Um. Frank."

"Yeah?" Frank's voice comes from too close; he's somehow moved across the room without Gerard hearing him. Gerard edges around the couch, out of reach.

"I don't think – I mean. You… can't just do everything you see on TV, okay? There're some things in the great magic box you shouldn't do."

"Dude, duh. I know that. I'm not killing people just because I saw seventy-two billion _Law & Order_ episodes on TNT." Frank pauses, then goes on in a sharp tone. "And if you're thinking that it's _wrong_ or some bullshit – "

"No! Shit, I don't mean – "

" – because I would _know_ , Gee. Don't you think I would fucking _know_?"

Gerard throws him a startled look and freezes.

It's like someone cast a marble statue of Frank and threw it down in the living room. The lines of him look suddenly so _hard_ , as though light waves fear to touch him and have left his edges stark in the summer afternoon. He's got his feet planted, hands tense at his sides, a straight line from his shoulders to the heels of his feet. Over his shoulders, his wings loom half-extended.

The words and air in Gerard's lungs leaves him in one hard exhale, as if he's been slapped in the ribcage. They don't talk about it, ever; Gerard knows that Ray still questions Frank sometimes, looking for big answers to life, the universe and everything, but Gerard gave up on that back at the beginning, when Frank had sat with him in a grove of trees. There's just – too much to think about. God and ineffable plans and tattooed messages and how very tiny all of that makes Gerard feel.

All of it's staring him at him right now.

In the silence that follows, the fierceness shrinks out of Frank's body bit by bit, leaving just Frank, Frankie, their Inexplicable Angel, who examines Gerard. "Do you – not want to? I mean, like, genuinelynot want to, not like Noah. 'Cause it's okay, if you don't, I just don't want you to not want to for some stupid, shitty-ass reason."

Gerard shakes his head; he doesn't mean it as an answer, it's just that his ears are ringing a little. It's possible that a few electrons in the air around Frank just went haywire or something.

"Oh, good." Frank's wings drop down around his shoulders, which shrug easily. "That's cool. It looked like a lot more fun when Luke and Noah were doing it anyway. Hey, maybe Ray or Mikey would want to – "

"No!" Gerard yelps. "I mean. They're straight."

Frank raises his eyebrows. "Like, _genuinely_ straight, or Noah-straight?"

"Um. Genuinely."

"Oh." Frank pouts. "I don't know anyone else."

 _Thank God_ , Gerard thinks. He pulls himself together to say, "Well, that's too bad. You, um. Wanna get some pizza?"

That perks Frank right up. "Sure! I'll go hide in the bathroom." He bounds off.

"They won't be here until _after_ we order it," Gerard calls after him, but not loud enough for Frank to actually hear.

-o-

A week later, he's in the middle of a shift at his new job – data entry, because he just can't go back into art, okay, he'll fucking work as a _garbage man_ if he has to – when his phone rings.

"He's gone," Ray says, his already-reedy voice pitched all on one level and strung tight.

Another job down the tubes: Gerard runs right out the front door, doesn't even say goodbye. "Where, when, _what_?" he gasps as he jogs.

It sounds like Ray's doing the same. "Mikey just left, like, twenty minutes ago, and then – I swear, I was just in the bathroom and when I got out of the shower he was _gone_. I lost our angel, Gee!"

"Okay," Gerard says, desperately trying to flag down a cab without, like, getting hit by one. "Okay, twenty minutes. He can't have gotten far, right? I mean, he can't drive…"

Ray chokes. "Can he _fly_?"

Gerard freezes, his hand helplessly flapping in midair. "I don't know. I mean, we never tried. Maybe?"

He hangs up when he gets inside the cab and shoves a fistful of money at the driver to go as fast as he can; in New Jersey traffic, that's not saying much.

Halfway back, a different and no less horrifying thought occurs to him: maybe, wherever Frank came from, he's gone back now. He'd just… _appeared_ in their kitchen, no explanation, no warning. There's no reason to believe that he couldn't just as easily _disappear_. After all, it's not like they're saving the world or doing anything useful or even all that entertaining – and oh, _God_ , Gerard hadn't kissed him back. He'd wanted to, and he hadn't because he'd thought it was wrong or something, but what if it was _right_ and he fucked up this minor kinda-sorta- _miracle_ for all of them. For Mikey. Oh, God, Mikey.

His cell phone rings. "Mikey!"

"Hey," Mikey says. There's music playing in the background, sounds like grunge. "Ray called me. He told me to call you."

"We've lost Frank," Gerard says. Their weirdo, bright-eyed miracle that makes Mikey laugh, and he's _lost_ him.

"I've got Frank," Mikey says. "He followed me."

Gerard grips the phone. "What?"

"When I left the house, he followed me. We're at – " There's some shifting around and the music gets louder momentarily before Mikey's voice comes back. " – at the City Gardens."

Gerard recognizes the name from Mikey's halcyon days of ruling as the crown scene queen. "Has anyone seen him?" he gasps, snapping his fingers at the cab driver. "Can you go to the City Gardens?"

"He strapped himself up," Mikey says in his ear at the same time the driver says, "You didn't give me enough money."

"Not all that well," Mikey adds. "But I got him in the bathroom and fixed him up."

"Wait, what?" Gerard says as he paws through his wallet and comes up with a tired-looking dollar bill. "You're still in the club?"

The driver takes the bill and makes a face. "Still only halfway."

Gerard groans, "Oh, come _on_ ," at the same time Mikey says, "Yes, we're still here. I can't just leave."

"Mikey, if somebody sees him…"

"I can't _leave_ , Gee," Mikey repeats. "Look, the band's about to start, I've got to go. Ray's on his way."

"Mikey – "

"He's fine. He's – " Mikey laughs suddenly. _Laughs_ , out loud. It's practically a hoot. "He's having fun. He'll be fine 'til you get here."

" _Mikey_ – "

The phone cuts out in a burst of snare drums. Gerard swears and shoves his credit card across through the little window into the front seat. "Just fuckin' get me there, okay?"

By the time they pull up outside, the cabbie is Gerard's mortal enemy and the band's in full swing. He can hear the dull boom of a bass drum through the walls and open door, and for a moment he freezes on the sidewalk, heart spinning a new tempo. The sound of it takes him back to full parking lots and festivals where he could hear the other bands beating along on their own stages, different organs pulsing to a whole body.

There isn't even a proper hoodie to pull across his face. Shit. Someone's going to recognize him. Only the thought of Frank, Frank being found out, Frank being dissected with his wings pinned out on either side, propels him forward through the narrow door.

Mikey must have put his name down on the list, or maybe someone recognizes him after all, because Gerard slips easily through the crowd around the front door. Inside, the bass kicks up to that certain level hovering between exclamation and pain; it's a bit too much on the latter side for Gerard, but then again, it's been a long time.

Christ, it's been a long time.

He doesn't even look for a few seconds, just keeps his head down and sways along to the drumbeat. Imagines that when the opening riff ends, his voice will be the one that people hear; he even opens his mouth, forms the first soundless word.

Then someone else's voice scratches on the mic.

He doesn't know the band. Well, doesn't know _all_ the band: a double-take confirms that yeah, that's Bob fucking Bryar on drums. Bob Bryar of the Used crew and oh, man, Gerard really needs to find Frank just as fast as fucking possible and get the fuck out of Dodge, because that's a few degrees too close for Gerard. Bob knows Bert, who knows _all_ about the Gerard that he used to be… the Gerard that he still is, beneath the surface, just covered over with nice pretty AA stitches.

Gerard hugs himself as he scans the crowd. Once upon a time he'd been able to pick out bloodied fans from the writhing mass of limbs, stop the whole set to yell for their rescue, then belt out the next song with a bubble of triumph pumping his lungs. He'd loved that feeling, loved showing them _hey, see, we don't all have to be jackass rock stars, I can be something_ more _if you give me the chance._ Only, they had, and he hadn't.

Now it takes him a little longer, but he finds Mikey by the side of the stage; looks like he's doing tech crew, face focused on the stage, listening to the instruments play. When Gerard messages him, though, Mikey's head immediately ducks toward his Sidekick, then lifts to do the same search. That can only end in tears: if Mikey gets separated from the group, it usually takes several hours to reunite because he'll just stand there, arms at his sides, and blink vaguely in all directions.

Gerard messages him again: _point 2 Frank_.

Onstage, Mikey's arm lifts in a straight line. 

At the back of the room, Frank stands on a chair, his arms wrapped tight around Ray's shoulders. Ray stands on the floor in front of him, hands resting gently on Frank's folded forearms; as Gerard watches, the band hits the bridge with a pretty decent hook and Frank reacts by bouncing on the chair, steadied by Ray's grip.

Getting to them takes some work. Gerard was never much of a mosher, but this is definitely a mosh-worthy band, all hard hits and riffs. Not complex but enjoyable, the punk-rock equivalent of a TV procedural show: well-executed, contained, pretty forgettable. He pauses in the middle of the crowd and takes an elbow to the stomach when he realizes that some part of his brain has been critiquing them from the moment he walked in.

As he gets closer, he can see that a huge grin tips Ray's mouth upward and Frank – Frank looks like he's having some kind of religious epiphany. His wide eyes are locked on the stage, lips parted, utterly focused; he looks like he's trying to astrally project himself up onto the stage. 

The second song launches right on the dying throes of the first and Frank bounces in place again, the chair squeaking across the floor. 

Ray's pretty fixated, too, enough that he jumps in surprise when Gerard grabs his arm. Frank sees him at the same time and shouts, " _Gee_!" then dives off the chair. Suddenly Gerard has a body full of Frank, arms wrapped tight around his neck, chest plastered against his. Frank smells like sweat; Ray's coat is light, but some people in here are already shirtless.

He grips Frank close for a minute, relief rocketing through his veins. "Hey, Frankie," he croaks.

"This is so _cool_ ," Frank babbles, twisting back to look at the stage without letting go of Gerard's neck – and Gerard's _fucking_ brain immediately thinks about Frank kissing him, replays that moment for posterity. "Ray says that the drummer is this guy, Bob, that he's been playing with. They're gonna make their own band, and _they're_ gonna do this, too!"

Over Frank's shoulder, Ray flinches. Gerard doesn't look at him, keeps his eyes on Frank's smiling face so close to his own. "Frank, what the fuck?" Once his panic crumbles, anger floods in his place and he grips Frank's coat, _shakes_ him.

Frank's eyes snap to Gerard's, his smile freezing in place. "What?"

A drum solo hits. Even through the haze of rage growing like bacteria in his brain, Gerard thinks _wow, Bob is pretty good_. He still shouts over it, "How many times? How many times have we told you _not to leave the fucking house, Frankie_."

All the delight crumbles off Frank's face, replaced by a wavering bridge of defiance. "I sit inside _all the time_ ," he yells back. "I sit around and watch TV and I don't do anything. Mikey was talking about this show and I just – I wanted to see it!"

Words fail Gerard – they always do, shit, they _always_ leave when he needs them the most – and in their absence he shakes Frank again. 

That jolts Ray into motion, his big hands settling on Gerard's forearm. "Gee – "

"Why the fuck haven't you taken him home, yet?" Gerard shouts.

"Would you keep your voice down?" Ray says. He has that look on his face again, the too-adult expression that hurts along the edges, like a mask that pinches. "You're drawing more attention than Frank. He's strapped up, he's fine, no one's looked at him twice. Everything's _fine_ , Gerard."

 _It's not fucking fine_ , Gerard thinks. He remembers Mikey on the phone, the way he'd laughed – actually fucking _laughed_ – at whatever Frank had been doing. 

"What the fuck is the matter with you," he says to Frank, voice cracking, and suddenly he's crying. Frank stares at him, his eyes huge, and then his face crumples up, too, surprised and uncomprehending.

One of Ray's hands jumps to Gerard's shoulder, holding him up. "Gee. Hey. What's – "

"I'm okay," Gerard says automatically, letting go of Frank and wiping his own face.

Frank's fingers hesitantly touch the front of Gerard's shirt. "I'm sorry. Gee. _Gee_."

"It's okay," Gerard tells him without looking. A second round of the chorus draws his attention to the stage and he says a little desperately, "They're pretty good."

Ray's looking at him, too, pinched in concern; but he plays along. "Yeah. The lyrics kinda suck, though."

Frank searches both their faces then relaxes a bit. "I like the drums."

"Yeah?" Gerard lets Frank catch one of his hands, even manages to squeeze a little in return. "You wanna be a drummer when you grow up, Frankie?"

Frank rolls his eyes. "Shut up, dumbass, I'm not a kid." But he peers at Gerard's face. "Can – is it really okay if we stay? We can leave if you want."

"'Course not," Gerard says with a cheeriness that shakes at the edges. "We can stay. You wanna get back up on your chair?"

Frank keeps hold of his hand, pulling Gerard to stand beside him while he clambers back up into the chair. Pretty soon he gets lost in the music all over again, jumping around in excitement so much that Gerard wraps an instinctive arm around his hips to keep him from toppling over.

The band – _Hollow Boys_ , Ray shouts – plays for about another half hour and by then the sound of it has poured into Gerard's ear. _Poison for King Hamlet_ , he thinks and oh, that'd make a good lyric. He grips Frank's waist.

Beside him Ray moves his head along to the music; but he immediately leans forward and tilts his ear when Gerard turns in his direction.

"You and Bob?" he says. It's impossible to sound casual when shouting.

The stage lights reflect in Ray's pupils. "Yeah. We're just talking about it – he's filling in for the studio, too, obviously – " He jerks his chin to the stage. " – but then, yeah. Maybe."

"That's cool," Gerard manages. From what little he remembers about Bob, Gerard thinks he's a pretty good guy. There are a lot worse people that Ray could hitch his wagon to.

The band winds up. That familiar post-show lull hits the club as the performers slouch off the stage and the clubbers mill in uncertain groups, both winding down from their adrenaline highs. Frank apparently has no such problem; he leaps from atop his chair. "I wanna meet Bob."

Ray glances quickly at Gerard. "Mikey said we could come back afterwards…"

"Sure," Gerard says and lets Frank tug him along by the hand. He feels hollowed-out, breakable.

Mikey's at the side of the stage, a limp clump of input cables in his hands; he looks lost. When he sees them walking up he ducks his head, starts re-winding the cables.

"Hi, Mikey! That was awesome." Frank swoops right down onto Mikey's back, arms wrapping around his neck. Mikey almost topples over but still smiles and reaches back to grab one of Frank's legs. "Whatcha doing?"

"Wrapping cables."

"Well, can we meet the band now? Please? You can wrap cables later, take me to Bob!"

"Oh, God," Ray says, his eyebrows drawing together in a jumble of amusement and genuine alarm, "he's like every worst groupie."

"Are you gonna let me up?" Mikey says, but his mouth is all twitchy again. 

"Are you gonna take me to Bob?"

"You guys go ahead," Gerard tells them. "Ray and I've gotta... We'll catch up."

Mikey's eyes slide up to his and away again. "C'mon, Frankie."

As they sidle through a mass of bodies down the back hall – and Gerard reserves one last burst of anxiety for Frank's hidden wings as a roadie jostles into him – Ray murmurs, "Look, you're probably mad at Mikey, but the two of you fighting is _creepy_. It's the silent duel of twitching eyebrows."

Gerard pulls Ray by one elbow into a corner and tucks his chin against Ray's collarbone. "Mikey," he says hoarsely. The next band has started up, a whine of deliberate, stylized feedback bursting on the speakers. Gerard cringes and hunches further into Ray. _Ray fixes things._ "We can't lose Frank again. Ray – he almost killed himself."

Ray goes still underneath the microphone buzz, doesn't speak until the muffled opening verse. "Mikey?"

Gerard nods, his chin bouncing painfully over Ray's clavicle.

"When?"

"A few months ago. He – "

(He'd crawled into Gerard's bed in the middle of the night and poked Gerard awake. They'd lain there for hours whispering back and forth, and Gerard had drawn it out of him bit by bit: how Mikey had just spent a few hours seriously trying to come up with a non-messy way of offing himself. He'd gone back to sleep right there lying next to him, and Gerard had thought viciously at the ceiling, _No you don't, you motherfucker. Not this. Gamma, the band, the music, but you don't fucking get_ this _._ )

" – didn't _do_ anything. Not really. But he was thinking about it. He told me so."

"Did he – did you get him…"

Gerard nods again, his teeth knocking together painfully. "He stayed at a hospital. Just for a week, and then they did outpatient stuff. He's still going."

Ray's hands settle on his back, pulling him in tighter. It's an instant comfort and Gerard clutches at it. "Why didn't you _call me_?"

Gerard had thought about it, more than once, lying awake and afraid in his basement with an empty room next door, imagining how it would feel if this was permanent. Ray Toro fixes things but Gerard hadn't felt like he'd had the right anymore; plus, Ray had been the only one left standing after everything had gone off the rails. Otter was gone, Gerard was a drunk, and then Mikey… there hadn't been anyone else, just Ray.

One-legged chairs are hell to balance on, and always break sooner or later. Just as deep as his terror for Mikey, Gerard had wanted one of them to walk away clean.

"We just can't lose Frank," Gerard says aloud.

"Okay."

Gerard closes his eyes, not wanting to put his shit on Ray, ashamed of his own desperation. Still, he can't help but say, "I keep _losing_ shit."

"Okay," Ray murmurs, rubbing a palm over the muscles around Gerard's spine. Gerard unwinds in a way he hasn't for a fucking _year_ , and he clings to Ray for dear life. 

When Gerard pulls himself together they go out through the back of the club, past the sweat-musk-filled green room and the narrow bathroom where a whole punk band is preening their Mohawks, and pass underneath the flickering red exit sign. Out in the summer night, cicadas shriek like Mother Nature's version of feedback.

A cherry burn in the dark leads them on and Gerard thinks of will o' the wisps luring unwary travelers to drown; but only the voice of Bob Bryar waits for them. "Gerard motherfucking Way, how y'been?"

On Bob's other side, Frank is a jittery shadow. "Gee, Ray, I wanna get a lip ring. Bob has a lip ring."

Ray groans and Gerard reaches out to the third person in the circle. Mikey turns into the touch automatically, eyes squinting in the dark; Gerard slides an arm around his shoulders and leans his chin against Mikey's arm. He's pretty sure that Mikey can sense some of what just happened, because after a moment he reaches up to curl his fingers in the worn collar of Gerard's denim jacket. 

Tension pours out of Gerard in increments, eased by the grip of Mikey's fingers and the interplay between Frank and Bob, who's obviously already got Frank's number figured out (though hopefully not his species).

"When we were on tour in Amsterdam," Bob is saying, "there were these hooker – they got _good_ hookers over there, man."

"Yeah?" Frank says, cool as you please, like he discusses the merits of hookers every day.

"Yup," Bob grunts. "They import 'em. Train 'em in European hooker school. They get graded on, like, strutting and shit."

"Yeah?" Frank says again, less certain but still trying to bluff. Gerard turns his face into Mikey's hair, his mouth open and frozen on a silent giggle.

"And when we drove around," shit, Bob's close to losing it, his voice has that forced sound of slipping around the press of laughter, "y'know, looking for a hooker, they all had cold beer and food with 'em on the street. Remember, Ray?"

"Cheese platters," Ray wheezes. That does it for them both: Ray busts up and Bob's shoulders shake with his totally-silent laughter.

Lit only by the distant glow of neon, Frank's head darts between them. "You – you're _lying_. You're a lying liar who lies!" He jumps at Bob; Gerard, Ray, and Mikey all twitch with alarm. 

Bob, though, just stands still. There's enough of a size differential that he stays steady as a rock even while Frank literally climbs up his side and settles with his arms wrapped around Bob's neck and his legs around his waist, hollering. "Motherfucker! Filthy rotten dirtbag scoundrel! Arrogant one-testicled cur of – hey, you're kinda big, dude."

"That's what she said," Bob reports, and takes another drag of his cigarette.


	3. The Devil in the Desert

Frank falls hard for Bob, though he never forgets that initial bout of treachery. Every time Bob shows up at Ray's place – and he's started coming over a lot, lately – Frank bellows, "Bob Bryar! My sworn enemy!" then takes a running leap at the man.

One night they forget to strap Frank up before Bob arrives. Gerard nearly has a heart attack; but Bob only stands there for a moment, cranes his neck over Frank's shoulder to stare at the spot where Frank's wings merge with his shoulder blades, then says, "Nice halter top."

Something changes in the air after Bob's non-reaction. That night, Ray and Bob move the couch out of the living room into the kitchen; Gerard provides crucial support by carrying the pillows. Whatever, it's _symbolic_ , and it makes Ray smile. Frank hovers right at Bob's shoulder, tapping the drum skins then dodging back when Bob swats at him.

"I didn't know you played the drums, man," Gerard says as he watches Bob set up his kit with all the rigorous care of a tech.

"A man of many talents," Bob says solemnly, but then adds, "Something I always wanted to try."

Gerard thinks back to all the time they've spent with Bob, the years that he was on the road with them or another band watching someone else onstage. He pats Bob's shoulder awkwardly, then backs off when Bob shoots him a look.

They start playing just as Gerard leaves for work: data entry again, this time for a startup website that monitors airport traffic. By the time he comes back at 5 fucking AM, Mikey's drifting sleepily against the kitchen counter.

Gerard sidles up to Mikey, bumps his hip. For a moment Mikey doesn't react, too busy rolling a spoonful of ice cream around his mouth. Then he silently holds out the carton to Gerard, who takes a bite and waves the spoon at where Bob is sprawled on the couch in the kitchen. "Wore him out?"

Mikey _hmmm_ s, leaning his head against Gerard's shoulder. "I think Frankie's moved on."

Frank sits on the living room floor with his shoulders bent forward and his head tilted back. His wings flop behind him, as if he just doesn't have the energy to hold them up anymore. "Wow," Gerard marvels. "What happened?"

"Jam session, man. Ray took off – I think he's been holding it in for a while."

Sensing his name, Ray glances over and his hand falls over the strings to silence them. He looks fuzzy but flushed, an expression Gerard associates with double-header shows and the hiss of bus tires bearing them away from a venue into the night. "Hey, Gee," Ray calls softly. "Care to make a contribution to the 'Buy Frank a Guitar So He Can Stop Staring At Me' Fund?"

Frank's head swings around; he looks twice as buzzed and half as awake. "Gee! Gee, I need a guitar. I _need_ it, like a burning thing. Ray's guitar is too long."

"That's what she said," Bob's slurred voice says from the couch. Mikey titters into Gerard's shoulder.

"I thought you wanted to be a drummer, Frankie?" Gerard says.

"No, no, guitarist. Definitely guitarist."

"I feel so rejected." Bob heaves himself up, one eye squinted. "Am I not good enough for you anymore, Frank? What'd I do wrong?"

Frank gasps, twisting in Bob's direction. "Bob! No! I love you, Bob Bryar. My sworn enemy."

"Cast aside," Bob moans, covering his face with one hand so that Frank can't see him smile. "Like a used paper towel."

"You'll never love again," Ray giggles, leaning on his guitar for support. He must really be exhausted, if he's treating his precious instrument with so little regard.

"Bob," Frank moans, his expression a whole epic of conflict, "I still want to get a lip ring, I swear. I just want to play the guitar." He slumps down to the floor, eyes at half-mast, and settles with his face on his folded hands. "Can't I d'both?"

"Guess so." Bob's already drifting off, too, eyes falling shut. They blink open momentarily. "It's good to see you, Gee. You should stick around next time."

"Can't," Gerard says. "Work."

Bob grunts, which isn't an answer; but he lies back down without argument. Gerard has to lean way over him to put the ice cream away in the freezer.

Ray blinks at them. "Think we can all fit in the bed?"

Gerard waves. "Don't worry, man, go to sleep."

Ray doesn't need to be told twice. After he leans his Gibson in its stand and plods down the hall, Mikey picks his way past Frank and takeout bags and Bob's abandoned kit. This feels familiar, too, the hushed chaos after a gig, sleeping on makeshift beds tucked between their instruments; it feels like they should be in motion, already. 

Sunlight pushes against the vertical blinds hung over the door to Ray's balcony, but the air that slips through the slates has a bite of chill. It taps against Gerard's skin, reminding him of another summer coming to an end. My Chemical Romance has been dormant for a little over a year. Gerard's been clean for nine months to the day. 

On the floor, Frank's curled up in a nest of his own feathers, his eyelashes settled lightly on his cheeks. Gerard tries not to stare, but what the fuck, Mikey probably already knows anyway. "Think he'll be okay?"

"He looks comfy. Too bad we don't have wings."

"I'd want bat wings, anyway, not the fluffy kind," Gerard whispers, sitting down near Frank's head. He really shouldn't, but he does. "Giant motherfucking bat wings."

Mikey _hmmm_ s again and sits down beside Frank's bare, curled feet. "Think we can use his as pillows?"

Gerard keeps his eyes on Frank. "Actually, I was thinking I might head home. Sleep in my own bed for a night."

Then, after the silence gets too big for him, he sighs, "Mikey."

When he looks up Mikey hasn't moved or changed his expression; but his voice is tight with anger. "So you're really just blowing it off?"

"I'm not – it's already gone, Mikey. It's been a year, I can't just pick up a mic and go right back."

Mikey stares at him. This isn't how Gerard had wanted this to go, but they've started it now. "I've been thinking," he whispers, sliding into the words that he'd arranged while staring at lines of data on a computer screen, "that you guys could start a new band together. You and Ray and Bob."

He waits, his fingers twitching. Mikey has dropped his gaze down to Gerard's left knee. Eventually he mumbles, "What about you?"

Gerard shrugs. "I can't do it, Mikey. I'm really sorry, I wish I could." God, he wishes he could. Going to that show a couple weeks ago had pulled out some cork in Gerard and now all these memories have poured out into his mind. 

The only thing more overpowering than the sense-memory of sweat and adrenaline, though, is the giant grey block of dread that Gerard smacks into every time he imagines getting up on stage again. In front of all those people who've read the blogs and seen the broadcasts on MTV, and know what he is. Short of a name change and massive plastic surgery, Gerard doubts anyone will look at him and _not_ see the failure. 

"It'd be easier for you guys to go on without me," he says. "You and Ray don't have, like, negative associations. And I'd be cheering you on, Mikey, you know that."

Mikey's eyes are back on Gerard's knee. "That's not what I meant it."

"What?"

"Him." Mikey points his chin at Frank. "You think it's a fucking accident, with all the lyrics and pictures? You're the one who looks for great significance in your cereal bowl, and you act like he doesn't fucking _matter_."

"It was Spaghettios," Gerard corrects automatically. Jeez, claim to see a tea-leaf-like formation in _one_ bowl of soup and you never hear the end of it. "I'm not saying he's. It's just. I don't think he's for me – not like you mean. Like… he's mine, but he's not _for_ me." 

"Oh, okay," Mikey says, "so I get a fucking miracle, but you don't?"

Gerard's always had a gift with words, but right now he can't conjure up anything to make Mikey understand that it's still _his_ miracle, even if Mikey's the one who gets saved. He stays silent.

Mikey draws his knees up to his chest, wraps his arms around them. "It was never about the band, Gee. I worked at Eyeball for a year, I knew half the scene in Jersey. I could have joined anyone – but I wanted to be in _your_ band. If you're not in this, then I'm not either." 

They sit for a while in the hushed silence of early morning, wrapped in grey light and distantly serenaded by this fucking bird that always sits outside Ray's window and trills the same refrain over and over; at first it had been charming, but now Gerard just wants to knock the thing off its branch in a poof of feathers. Mikey picks at his nails and Gerard contemplates Mikey's stupid clown feet. 

Finally Gerard whispers, "I don't know if I'm that brave."

"Just," Mikey murmurs, "whatever you choose, just don't use me as an excuse, okay? Promise me that."

Gerard bites his lip, nods. "I won't. Promise."

Mikey sits back on his heels. "'M tired, man."

"I – I'm," Gerard says quickly as Mikey rises. "Thanks. I." He licks his lips, swallows, then whispers helplessly, "I can try? I can try."

Mikey's eyes slide to his, then away. "Okay."

It's only after Mikey has shuffled down the hall and the fucking bird – thank God – has flown off to bug the shit out of some other apartment and Bob has started snoring in the kitchen that Frank touches Gerard's knee. Gerard had been drifting in thought and jumps about a foot; he manages, barely, not to shriek. "Jesus, Frank," he gasps. 

Frank's almond-shaped eye peers up at him past the lock of hair hanging across his forehead. The hand on Gerard's knee shifts to his arm and Frank tucks both wings close to his back in one fluid motion. It still surprises Gerard: most of the time Frank jumps around and flails and tips himself over in his rush to do whatever it is he's doing, but when he's really paying attention, he can move with the grace of a dancer.

Right now he bends one knee underneath himself and tips his shoulders and pulls at Gerard's arm with surprising strength. Gerard finds himself rapidly off-balance; he puts a hand down to brace himself. It lands on Frank's wing and flails for a moment before doing a face-plant straight into a makeshift bed of feathers.

Frank eases onto his back, wings spread out on the floor. "S'okay. Doesn't hurt. C'mon, Gee."

Gerard's heart feels like he might pop a valve at any moment; his body twitches involuntarily wherever it encounters feathers (everywhere). They're right on eye level and Gerard finds himself meeting Frank's steady gaze from a few inches away… and it's that look again, that glimpse into infinity that Gerard has only seen once or twice and never forgotten.

Sex couldn't be this intimate. He's lying on Frank's wing. Gerard squeezes his eyes shut and worries for his poor heart.

Frank's fingers touch his temple, his cheek. "Don't be scared, Gee. Okay?"

"Okay," Gerard murmurs back. It's a lie, he's fucking terrified. He keeps his eyes closed.

-o-

It takes Gerard a few days to get his nerve together. Then, of course, he goes to Ray first. It means something, like he's asking permission, or forgiveness, or both. Gerard's not sure anymore, but he trusts Ray to know.

Ray's on his way out while Gerard's coming in… ships passing in the night. "Hey."

"Hey," Ray greets, shoving a cereal bar into his messenger bag. "Frank's in with Mikey."

"Cool." Gerard leans against the counter and waits until Ray's fully in motion for the door to say, "You got a notebook or something?"

Ray props the door open with an elbow; the glance he sends to Gerard is quizzical at first, then changes as his sleep-fogged brain catches on. "Oh. Yeah. Yeah! It's, uh… I think there's one in my desk, second drawer down. You, uh…" He hesitates, tangled for a moment in uncertainty and excitement, trying not to overplay his hand. "Feel free. Yeah."

The notebook's exactly where Ray told him. In the destruction of Ray's living room – they haven't bothered putting thing back in order between what even Gerard has to admit are practice sessions – he spreads the notebook on the floor and sits cross-legged over it. 

He sits there for a while.

If things had been different and Gerard had stayed clean the first time out and the band had stayed on the road, playing, _together_ – if, if, if – then this probably would feel more organic. 

What he really needs is a time machine. He tries to think of lyrics from _Three Cheers_ , hums the melodies to himself; but it sounds like someone else's music altogether. So much has happened to him since then… and that'd be natural, a progression, bands evolve all the time, but it's just so _much_. It sits inside his brain in a tangled mass of emotions that refuses to unravel. 

After an hour he has an honest-to-God panic attack and goes back into Ray's bedroom. "Mikey."

"Hngh?" Mikey grunts.

"Mikey, wake up. I'm sorry, but you have to get up soon, anyway, don't you?" He pauses, not long enough for Mikey to actually respond, then says in a rush, "I don't think I can do it."

Mikey's hand gropes briefly for the bedside table before he remembers that he doesn't actually wear glasses anymore. "What?"

Gerard ducks his head and bites at his nails until Mikey sits up. "You're writing?"

Semi-hysterical laughter bubbles out of Gerard's throat. "No."

It's an unforeseen disaster. His whole life, Gerard has been artistic; for it to leave him now…he slumps into himself.

Mikey blinks owlishly, still not all the way awake. "If I tell you it'll be okay, will you let me go back to sleep?"

"Uh. Yeah. I guess."

"It'll be okay." Mikey lies down.

Gerard goes back out into the living room; the notebook sits where he left it and Gerard edges around its blank surface to sit down in front of the television. It'll be okay. He doesn't have to do this. He doesn't owe anything to anyone. He hugs his knees and lets the mindless amusement of morning cartoons erase everything but the cold burn in his stomach.

Still, he jumps guiltily and pulls the notebook over when Mikey comes out for work a few hours later. Mikey doesn't even notice, or if he does notice he doesn't say anything, just mumbles to himself as he gathers his things – "Where are my keys? There they are…how about lunch, what shall I take for lunch, wallet, wallet" – then heads out the door. 

Gerard taps his pen against the notebook pages and doodles a piece of sushi in the margins, adding little googly, scared eyes and a looming pair of chopsticks. 

He dozes in place for a little while, propped against Bob's bass drum; his dreams are full of wriggling spaghetti dinners that keep escaping his fork. When he wakes, Frank is watching cartoons in front of him, wearing a pair of Star Wars pajama bottoms and eating dry Cocoa Puffs straight from the box. The tips of his wings brush Gerard's ankles; he did finally figure out how to sit down on the ground, but only by angling his wings to lie straight back across the floor behind him. 

Nestled between the wings, dead center on Frank's spine, are a pair of dancing skeletons. The guy skeleton wears a top hat and coattails; the girl skeleton twirls in place, her long black funeral dress fanning out around her bone legs. Beneath their claw-like feet, a banner curls in stylized block letters: 'THROW ON A BLACK DRESS!'

Gerard stares at the skeletons, his brain crawling up from the fuzzy edge of sleep. It looks a bit _Nightmare Before Christmas¬_ –ish… fuck, when did he last watch that movie? Yeah, last December, when he'd been going through withdrawal the second time around; in his fevered brain, he'd imagined himself as Jack, leading his horde of twisted but well-meaning monsters through Halloweentown. Or Oogie Boogie with his dice, cackling at life's misfortune. Anything but what he was: a junkie waking up to find out that he's someone he never meant to be, staggering into the bathroom to vomit and stare at the mirror, hating who he would see…

His brain trips suddenly over the tracks of an intersecting thought, and Gerard blinks at the back of Frank's head.

"Oh," he breathes.

Frank looks back at him, one cheek bulging squirrel-like. "Huh?"

Gerard's heart drums in his ears. He takes a few deep breaths. "Nothing."

After Frank turns back to the television, Gerard snags the notebook's corner, easing it back into his lap, slowly, slowly, holding the thought in his head like fragile spun glass. He's shaking pretty hard and has to press with the pen, but he gets it out, one whole verse – feels like an introduction, an invitation to the penitence ball _oh shit, that's good, that can come later_ , a first song. 

He puts the notebook aside and crawls forward on his knees to hook his arms underneath Frank's wings, dragging Frank back against his own chest. Frank twists his head sideways, little bits of Cocoa powder puffing from his mouth as he asks, "Gee?"

"It's okay," Gerard tells him and presses his closed eyes against the back of Frank's head. "It's okay."

-o-

He leaves a neat stack of papers on the living room floor, the songs laid cross-wise over one another, and retreats into the bedroom with Frank. Facing the others feels too huge for Gerard to leap in all at once; he's got to ease into this new water, inching up past his waist and armpits. Plus, he doesn't want to derail this burst of writing. That initial false start has him spooked and he scrambles away from it, barely scrawling a line across the page before he's reaching for the next set of words.

Or, turning to Frank.

Thankfully Ray introduced Frank to comic books a couple of weeks ago as part of his 'inside fun' regime. Right now Frank is curled up against the headboard of Ray's bed, a Frank Miller in hand (and how the hell does Ray expect him to develop a good moral code from _that_?), still bare-chested. Maybe Gerard should feel a little weird about sitting here staring at a half-naked Frank, but - - 

"Dude, you've got my cheerleader! Lift – roll over?" He nudges at Frank's hip.

"I have _wings_ ," Frank says in a fussy voice, not looking up from the comic book.

"Then fucking sit up or something!"

Frank purses his lips but sits up and only tuts a little when Gerard holds his arm high in the air, away from his body. Tattooed across Frank's ribs is a cheerleader in – _oh, cool_ – a frilly skirted uniform and a gas mask. The colors are fucking amazing: the grayish gas mask clashes with the uniform's immaculate red and white stripes. She's got a pair of knives in her hands, a violent pose, and the words _someone will bleed, someone will pay_ scrawled in a circle around her.

"My arm's tingling," Frank comments.

"Sorry," Gerard mutters, not letting go while he scribbles away.

"S'okay. Feels kinda cool." Frank giggles.

"You are a weird little motherfucker," Gerard tells him, and thinks _you're never gonna fit in much, kid_.

At some point the others come home; human-like noises traipse along the edge of Gerard's mind. It's out of his hands, now, and if he thinks about it too much all that cold water will close over his head.

Instead he focuses on Frank, on the tattoos. They're perfectly, beautifully arranged: what had looked like chaos at first glance forms into a careful design the more Gerard studies them. A path zig-zags across Frank's skin and Gerard follows it from one tattoo to the next. The heart on Frank's arm – emblazoned with 'MOM', stabbed with a knife, and sheathed in flames ( _burning, hating her for letting you exist_ ) – leads to the curling collarbone declaration 'three cheers for tyranny, unapologetic apathy' ( _defiant self-hatred to the end, no forgiveness, no rest, no sleep_ ), which dips down over the picture of Mikey just above Frank's heart. 

The Mikey one makes Gerard pause. It takes him back to those long, terrifying nights when Mikey had been in the hospital and Gerard had been down there in the dark, alone, with nothing left to say and no one to hear it if he did. He breathes around the pain of that memory, hands stilled on the page.

The door creaks. "You want coffee?"

Mikey stands just inside the door with a mug in his hands. "Coffee," Gerard says, staring. "Shit, yeah." He puts his hands out, grasping in midair until his fingers close around hot ceramic and the sweet, sweet scent of coffee fills his nose. "Unnnngh. Nectar of the gods."

"Hi, Mikey!" Frank greets cheerily from underneath Gerard. 

"Hi, Frankie." Mikey stands beside the bed while Gerard drinks the mug in one go. He can sense Mikey's gaze on him, then away, then on him again; he's not quite sure what Mikey's examining so intently. 

The bitter burn of coffee in his throat pretty much washes away his ability to care. Gerard taps the upturned bottom of the mug a few times for good measure, then straightens and peers down into it. Licks his lips. Sniffs the hot, moist air still trapped inside.

"Do you want more?" Mikey asks, his lips quirking.

"Yes, please," Gerard says quickly, politely, and holds the mug out with what he hopes is a beguiling smile. 

"I wanna try some coffee," Frank says after Mikey has left again.

"Fuck no," Gerard says. "You're hyper enough as it is. Hold still."

Frank scowls and wriggles a little. "You never let me do anything."

"Just – gimme a fucking minute," Gerard snaps. He's being fussy and he knows it, but his eyes fall to the tattoo of Mikey. It's not just a portrait: more like a snapshot of frozen motion. Mikey is looking over his bony shoulder, his mouth open as if he'd been about to say something. His expression is uncertain, guarded.

It's – shit, it's just how he'd looked when Gerard had picked him up at the hospital. Gerard had driven the whole way there and back with his hands at ten and two on the wheel, his back aching from holding it ramrod straight. It pangs again now, a phantom memory.

"Hey." Frank's fingers touch Gerard's hand, slipping underneath his tight grip on the pen. "Gee?"

Gerard breathes out and looks at Frank's face instead of Mikey's. Somehow he's moved to straddle Frank and is using his stomach as a desktop; he'd been so wrapped up in the flow of words and pictures across Frank's body that he hadn't even been aware of moving. Maybe his brain hemispheres have separated. He saw this documentary once about some guy who had a lobotomy, and now his hands act as two separate entities: one skitters across the table and the other chases after to drag it back. Gerard used to feel that way sometimes when he was drunk or high, or both. He'd spend whole hours watching himself stagger around.

Or maybe he's just tired. It's dark outside again. The world has moved on outside of this room where he and Frank are curled up inside Frank's tattoos and, by extension, Gerard's head. Maybe those are the same thing. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

He says to Frank, "You're like, my fucking study guide."

He meant it as a joke, something to ease the sudden tension in the air; but Frank only stares at him with wide, solemn eyes. His fingers curl over Gerard's wrists.

Outside, a drum rattles, and Bob's deep voice says something to Ray. Another drum hit throbs like a stuttered heartbeat in the evening air. Gerard moves his pen across the page.

-o-

Gerard sort of forgets to go to his crappy graveyard-shift job then sort of deliberately doesn't go. It's a wobbling step instead of the bold leap that maybe it should be. On the cosmic level, though, it makes sense: their first time had gone from zero to contract so fast, and now they're toeing the water. 

Frank is all over the place, asking questions and wanting to play Mikey's bass and demanding that Gerard explain what his lyrics mean. "But what's a fucking _metaphor_ , Gee?" Frank demands, sucking on a cigarette and peeking over Gerard's shoulder as he tries to re-write the 'I'm Dying Slowly and Painfully' song into something that will fit three-fourths time. Gerard's not sure whose ass to kick for the cigarette in Frank's mouth; probably Bob, if he dared. He doesn't.

Besides, Bob is their champion of Frank-wrangling. Gerard knows from experience that a man's got to have the patience of Buddha and resolve of a samurai to deal with Bert McCracken on a daily basis. Either that or be wasted the entire time. Bob falls squarely into the first category: from what little Gerard remembers of their European tour (which did not, alas, include cheese-bearing hookers), Bob has the kind of laid-back self-possession that Gerard's mother would describe as _solid_. Bob is solid, and bears up well in Hurricane Frankie.

Compromises must be made, of course. Gerard and Ray are out on the narrow balcony playing a bare-bones acoustic version of the 'Gerard Is Drunk and Miserable All the Fucking Time' song, when Bob pokes his head out of the door to announce casually, "So, hey, I'm taking Frank to get his lip pierced."

It's a tossup as to who reacts worse, Ray or Gerard. Ray has the advantage of being just slightly taller than Bob and awesome, which means he's much more vocal in his protests; Gerard mostly stands next to him and says, "Yeah!" and "Needles!" whenever Ray pauses for breath. Mikey sits on the couch flipping through an _US Weekly_.

They're not prepared to have to fight _Frank_ on this, though. At least not the Frank in front of them. Gone is the wide-eyed baby-loving innocent: Frank folds his arms and juts one hip defiantly. "Anytime you guys wanna stop being douchebags. Anytime. I'm not a fucking child, here, I _can_ make my own decisions."

Ray keeps up a stuttering argument all the way to the tattoo parlor; Gerard takes one look at Frank's hip and knows he's beat. They huddle together outside, Ray out of principle and Gerard out of trypanophobia.

Eventually Ray exhales a bluish sigh, flicking his cigarette ash onto the sidewalk. "I guess I'm overreacting."

Gerard glares at him. "Way to stick to your guns, Toro."

"Oh, whatever. I don't see you in there wrestling him away from the big buzzing needle gun."

Clapping his hands over his ears, Gerard nearly burns himself in the side of the head with his own cigarette. "Shut up shut up shut up, don't fucking talk about the _needle gun_ , you motherfucker!"

Ignoring his outburst completely, Ray continues on with a thoughtful bent to his mouth. After a moment Gerard drops his hands in time to catch the tail end of Ray's Deep Thoughts. " – like he's our kid. We've raised him and now he's leaving the nest. It's just hard to take, I guess."

Gerard reels. "What?"

Ray shrugs and kicks his cigarette to the curb. "Nothing, it's stupid. Just rambling. I do feel sorry for our parents right about now, though."

There's no time for Gerard to freak out properly, because right then Frank, Bob, and Mikey come out of the parlor. On their heels is a skinny young man with pale skin and bottle-blond hair; he looks like an albino, or a cancer patient. His eyes rove quickly over Ray before settling on Gerard, and he gets the Look. Gerard's learned to associate The Look with high-pitched screaming; but the kid plays it super-cool, just shakes his hand and says, "Like your music, man."

Beside him, Frank uses his tongue to gingerly probes at a stud in his lip. It's distracting enough that Gerard coasts right on through the usual fan encounter, until the kid loses a bit of his cool and says in a rush, "So are you guys doing anything?"

The _soon_ is unspoken but still audible. There's a half-second pause as it drifts out into the air like a balloon and they're gathered to watch it rise. Gerard looks at the kid, too, and sees the genuine hope in his face.

"Um," he says, and feels four other pairs of eyes swing around to him. "Maybe. We're hoping so. So. Yeah. Look for that."

"Cool. That's really cool to hear, man. I'll – yeah, I'll be looking." _I've been looking_.

"Thanks, Tim," Bob says. The kid's slender hand disappears into Bob's fist. "Appreciate it."

Tim reels himself in. "Yeah, man. Anytime. Nice to meet you, dude," he adds, reaching over to thump Frank on the back. 

Thumps on his shoulders. Tim's face changes, puzzled.

"Anyway!" Ray says, his voice pitching upwards. "We gotta jet, you know? Nice talking to you!" He practically scoops Frank up and heads for the car. Gerard stifles a nervous giggle, trailing after.

Inside, Frank stretches out in the back seat. Bob takes shotgun because he's Bob, Mikey squishes against the door behind Ray, and that leaves Gerard to hesitantly wriggle his way under Frank.

"Don't bump my rip!" Frank yelps even though Gerard is nowhere near Frank's poor mutilated mouth. 

"I'm not going to touch your stupid lip, Frankie. Lift your head."

Frank does so, but then frowns when he sets it back down in Gerard's lap; his necks kind of at a funny angle and as they pull out of the parking lot Frank heaves himself up, kicking Mikey's leg in the process. "Ow," Mikey says without feeling; he's too busy playing Tetris on his cell phone.

"Move sideways," Frank tells Gerard, his eyebrows bunching. 

"What?"

"He wants you to move sideways," Bob says from the front, then goes back to talking about loggerhead turtles with Ray.

Gerard rolls his eyes. "Oh, well, why didn't you say so?" He squirms one knee up onto the seat. There are a couple seconds of awkward shifting and frustrated grunts from Frank, but then Gerard winds up with his back against the door, his legs open in a V on either side of Frank's back.

Belatedly, he realizes that maybe this wasn't a good idea.

Too late. Frank settles against him, wriggling into Gerard's chest and tucking his forehead under Gerard's chin. "Hey, Gee," he greets, his breath blowing hot against the hollow of Gerard's throat.

Weighed down and helpless, Gerard feels sweat pop out on his face, his neck. His skin goes tight and sensitive wherever Frank rubs against him. He hears Ray's voice inside his head saying, _he's, like, our kid_ , and feels sick to his stomach. 

He's a bad, bad man.

-o-

It's not even like he can't see Ray's point. Ray, Gerard, and Mikey are the closest things Frank has to parents: between them all, they've taught Frank to speak, spit, wear clothes, and recognize the many stages of Batman from the campy Adam West version to Frank Miller's Dark Knight. 

All things considered, Gerard is kind of amazed that Frank hasn't turned out to be a serial killer or a pervert. He's their miracle child, the band's baby – and Gerard can think of them that way now, as a _band_. 

He'd expected to feel more excited about the second coming of My Chemical Romance. Alcohol has shorted out many of his memory wires, but Gerard still remembers how _excited_ he'd been back in the beginning… terrified, yes, enough to self-medicate. It'd seemed like the only alternative in the presence of serious fucking stage fright. Through the fear, though, he'd felt a wave building behind him, pushing his back until he'd stumbled and fumbled onward. 

Four years and change later, he's been in every state and a ton of foreign countries; he's been to the Grammys and people have screamed his name in decibels usually reserved for life-threatening emergencies. But he's also lived through the mindlessly dull moments between, the awkward uncertainty of arriving at a new venue and not knowing his way to the bathroom, never having enough food or clean clothes or sleep. None of them are walking into this blind: they all know what it takes. Even Bob has been around … shit, he might know better than any of them, having worked as a tech for fucking ever instead of being handed a record contract on a silver platter.

They all still want it. _Gerard_ still wants it. It's a relief to discover that desire in himself after he spent so long trying to kill it.

The 'Stop Being Scared of Kids' song is the first new one that they play together in Ray's living room, after they spend two caffeine-powered days running through _Three Cheers_. Gerard pulls the seat cushions off the couch, sets them against the bare wall, and sings from there: it's not exactly the best for lung capacity, but right now he's just an auditory placeholder for the others anyway. They stop every couple of lines for someone's issues. Ray takes furious notes in handwriting that only he can decipher.

It's pretty easy for Gerard: the advantage of being lead singer and not playing a goddamn thing. He drums his fingers on his jeans a little and looks at Mikey, jerks his chin in question. Mikey smiles back, his bass hung loose at his side while Ray crouches next to Bob. Ray's hair looks excited; Gerard takes that as a good sign, then wonders briefly about the fact that he judges the quality of their little sessions on the behavior of Ray's hair before he goes back to drumming on his jeans and staring at the back of Frank's neck.

Frank sits between Gerard and the unofficial stage area, cross-legged on the floor like a kid being told a nursery story. Mikey smiles at him, too, and Gerard can see the shells of Frank's ears shift with his answering grin. It's a soft little bubble in time, spreading its warmth all through Gerard's veins.

But then Ray finishes up with Bob and steps back to hoist his guitar up against his hipbone again, and they play the opening verse all the way through and on into the chorus. The buzz underneath Gerard's skin grows with his voice, and he unfolds his limbs to really belt out the "Teenagers scare the living _shit_ outta me!" part. Maybe he even throws a little devil-sign fist up into the air. Whatever, they're all focused on their instruments anyway.

Frank isn't. His head is turned around toward Gerard, face in half-profile, eyes wide and so, so fucking dark. Staring.

Gerard's voice dies in his throat, but no one else notices; Bob and Ray talk about transitions to the bridge and Bob makes adjusts his snare drum. 

"Hey, so," Mikey says suddenly, speaking loud over the drum hits, "so, we might have a gig."

Gerard blinks, his own mouth popping open involuntarily. Ray twists to look at Mikey and Bob slowly puts one palm flat against his drum.

Mikey's fingers slide along his fret, automatically seeking out chords. "Apparently that guy Tim, he has a blog or something, and he made a post about us."

Gerard chokes, horror rising. What comes out of his mouth, though, is, "What – he – _Frank_?"

"Nothing," Mikey says quickly, "It was just about the band, and about what you said. About us maybe getting back together. Some other people got ahold of it and it's kind of taken off online. The rumor mill. So, I looked up some open venues. People seemed really interested, and I thought…" He shrugs.

Bob and Ray look to Gerard silently. God, he wishes that they wouldn't, but they do. "What'd you find?" he asks slowly.

Mikey's fingers settle on a D minor. "Well. There's an open gig at the Tulliver on Halloween night. It's… kind of appropriate? There are a bunch of other bands, too, but – well, I know somebody that works there, and I reserved a slot. I didn't use our name," he adds, "I put us down as The Black Parade."

Gerard laughs, just a little strangled. "Mikey." His fingers twitch to do something, to hug or strangle or both.

Ray pipes up in a thin voice. "That's – Halloween is two weeks away."

Mikey's mouth sets in familiar lines. "Yup." His fingers move to a G. "What else are we doing this for?"

 _Why do you keep asking_ me _?_ Gerard wants to say, but doesn't. Bob and Ray are looking in his direction again, and – fuck, so is Frank, staring at him quietly, face still and waiting.

"Maybe," Gerard says. He breathes once, twice, and thinks of a wave at his back. "Yeah. Yeah."

And Frank's face breaks into a wide smile.

He stays up after everyone else has gone to sleep. Bob has finally brought a blow-up mattress over from his place; he sleeps on the floor beside his kit, a warrior with one hand on the sword. Gerard kind of loves Bob.

He pauses for a while in the living room, a smoke dangling in his fingers, watching all of them. Mikey and Ray on the hideaway, Bob on his mattress, sleeping the sleep of the righteous. His _band_ , his followers, if he says yes.

When he walks back into the bedroom he's so distracted by the silent countdown clock in his head that he doesn't even notice Frank until he's right there, plucking the cigarette out of Gerard's hands. He dumps it into a half-full cup of water atop Ray's DVD rack with a hiss.

"Hey," Gerard says. He doesn't really mind; he's too distracted by the way Frank's tattoos shift over his muscles. Those cute little cowboy pajamas hang low on his hips and he fiddles with the hem. The dark smudges of his finger tattoos disappear and reappear, and Gerard's chest tightens suddenly. 'HALLOWEEN.' 

Jesus Christ. He'd wondered what that had meant, hadn't remembered writing any song about the holiday. But now… shit.

"What's funny?" Frank asks.

"Nothing," Gerard says, passing a hand over his face. "Nothing. Just." He giggles again into his cupped hand.

"Hey." Frank's fingers slide through his, brushing over Gerard's mouth before he pulls the hand away. Moonlight glints off the metal stud in Frank's lip and makes the wings nearly fucking _glow_ in the dark.

It distracts Gerard. That's why he doesn't pull away in time when Frank steps in and tilts his chin up. That's why.

Maybe Frank has been watching more soft-core cable sex scenes, or the soaps have gotten a lot more detailed about the how-tos of male-male kissing. Either or whatever, this feels so fucking different. The metal stud of his piercing presses against Gerard's mouth and his fingers settle in five fragile contact points on the side of Gerard's face, his jaw, his neck. 

Gerard pinches his eyelids shut and tries to figure out what to do. While he's thinking, his mouth moves automatically in response; he tries not to, seriously, he tries, but it's engrained from so many drunken encounters when he'd relied on muscle memory.

That, more than anything, makes him break the kiss at last. He's fucked a hundred people all around the world; he's fucked groupies and roadies and Bert McCracken and people that he doesn't even remember except for the damning clue of bruised skin afterwards.

When he pulls away, though, Frank snaps his wings out and _wraps them around Gerard_ in a soft rush of air.

Gerard freezes, his eyes opening up wide. There's not much to see, just a curtain of white feathers and Frank's angry face. "Why not?" Frank asks without preamble. "And don't give me bullshit."

Invisible glue fills Gerard's mouth and throat; he unsticks his tongue with an effort. Holy shit, he's – he's fucking _wrapped_ in Frank's wings, pinned in place, helpless. Shit, shit shit. "You don't," he gasps hoarsely. "Frank. Stop."

" _Why_?" Frank yells in a fierce whisper. 

"You don't know what you're doing, you don't – "

"The fuck I don't," Frank states flatly. His hands tighten into fists in the front of Gerard's shirt, knuckles pressing into his stomach. His gaze drops to Gerard's mouth and he goes on, softer, "I know exactly what I'm doing, Gerard. I know way more than you do."

The dark of Frank's pupils look deep and fathomless. Endless. Gerard closes his own eyes in a swirl of dizziness. Fuck, oh, fuck this was going to be hard. He couldn't – but he could. He's bluffed his way through worse: pretended to be on top of the world when he was drowning. "I don't want you," he says.

"You're lying," Frank hisses, but there's a vulnerable underbelly to his voice. 

Gerard lunges for it ruthlessly, his fingernails curled into the skin of his own palms. "I don't want you, okay? You're an angel, it'd be weird, like – like _unnatural_ -weird. Let the fuck go of me."

The wings flinch away. Gerard breathes out, his shoulders dropping as Frank lets him go; when he opens his eyes to see Frank's pale face, though, the tension slingshots right back. Frank crosses his arms. "What, you wanna strap me up?"

"It's not – shit, fuck, goddammit, it's not about the fucking wings." He pulls in a breath, scraping his words together. "You don't know crap about the real world. It's not all babies and gay soaps and Ray fucking Toro, okay, there is _shit_ and fucking _blackness_ , and it's just waiting to tear you apart."

Frank stares at him, his eyes narrowed to slits. "What're you even talking about? I'm not trying to fuck the whole world, just _you_ , you fucktard!"

"But that's just fucking it!" Gerard drags a quick hand back through his hair, his eyes stinging when a few hairs rip out at the roots. "You look at me like I'm some kind of, of saint or something, and I'm not. I can't protect you, shit, I can't keep a fucking job, I'm barely clean. I'll let you down."

Frank takes a step toward him; Gerard backs up until he runs into the door. "You're like a fucking child," Gerard spits, desperate. " What d'you think is gonna happen here, Frankie? You wanna fuck and fall in love and hold hands and spend the rest of our lives indoors? People recognize me everywhere I go, okay, and you can barely _go outside_. You're safe here, right now. You wouldn't be safe with me."

It has the ring of truth to it, and Frank pulls away, his mouth working. After a moment he says, "So. You won't. Because I'm not a person. And. It wouldn't be normal."

"That's not – I mean, yes, that's part of it, but – "

"Because of the wings," Frank breaks in helpfully, his voice straining at the edges. "Because. Someone would see you, and then they'd see me _with_ you. And that'd be bad."

"Yeah." Gerard aches, suddenly, to touch Frank, and not even like _that_ – well, totally like that, too – but just to tilt his face up and make him smile again, the bright grin that greets Gerard whenever he walks into the room. Gerard has never seen anyone, not even Mikey, be so consistently happy about his sheer fucking _existence._ He equates smiles like that with sweat and hard work; Frank, though, he gives them up for nothing.

It's so fucking easy to love something like that.

"What," Frank says in a low voice. "What about. The band?"

For a moment Gerard thinks that Frank means _can I fuck the band instead_? Then realization bubbles up around his brain in an ice-cold pool.

Frank can't come with them. Not if they're going back on tour. Even if they kept him hidden – well, there'd be no keeping him hidden, not with reporters and fans crawling all over the place looking for a new piece of My Chem. They've been lucky and careful, but they've still had their close calls, and that's just dicking around Ray's apartment. Not going on a fucking world tour. Sooner or later, someone _would_ see, and then they'd lose him.

Which they will anyway, though in a less final and (maybe) less painful manner. The lesser of two evils: on Halloween, My Chemical Romance will ride again and Frank won't – can't – be there. 

Frank's realizing the same thing. Gerard can see it all right there on his face: the disbelief, the anger, and then deep, deep disappointment. 

"I'm sorry," Gerard whispers. He opens his hand in midair, touches nothing. _What the fuck was this for?_ "Sorry, Frankie."

He leaves Frank standing there in the dark, grabs his coat, and slips out the front door. It's probably his imagination, but he thinks he hears Mikey call sleepily after him as he goes. Gerard doesn't turn back.

-o-

The plan, the only one Gerard can think of, is to wander around the city until daybreak, then head home once all the others are awake. Maybe Ray will know what to do. Maybe he's already thought of this problem: maybe that's what all those lessons about money and toaster operation were about, Ray trying to make Frank self-sufficient. Preparing him to be left behind. Gerard feels a spurt of anger on Frank's behalf but it dies just as quickly. Ray lives, breathes, and eats the music, always has. Gerard can't blame him for wanting it again, and nor can he be blamed for doing the best he could in an impossible fucking situation. 

There's a definite bite in the air. Gerard leaves Ray's place behind, padding through the dark streets with his shoulders hunched, but it's too fucking cold to wander around all night brooding on street corners like he planned. 

So he goes to a bar.

He buys three shots, whiskey and vodka and tequila, fumbles his thumbs over the money. Math bounces around his head – _nine months, two weeks, three days_ – as he heads to a booth, tequila in one hand and whiskey and vodka in another. It's his Let's Get Shit-Faced As Fast As Possible system… he'd had a dozen different ones, depending on the sets they had to play or the planes they had to catch. International flight called for a couple pills to relax him, downed with some wine to make him sleep; a matinee set meant that he needed to be semi-functional that morning, so he'd stick to just beer the night before and a couple shots of rum in his coffee. 

It'd taken him so fucking long to admit his own addictions. Gerard had thought of drunks as bums on the street crazy for the booze and downing anything they could. He, though, he'd had _systems_ , and they only went haywire when something broke his concentration: someone else had a shitty day and yelled at him or a set went wrong or someone threw a bottle onstage and called him a sellout.

The liquid surface of each shotglass reflects the red neon light above his booth. Gerard cocks his head sideways and tries to see if there's a difference between their reflections dependent on their elemental properties. There isn't: the Three Motherfuckers look like plain old innocent water. A reverse Jesus move, liquor into water.

He shuts his eyes and thinks, _Okay, what the fucking fuck now, huh? What was all this_ for _? I get an angel, and teach him to walk and talk and play the guitar, and he saves me and he kisses me, and then I have to leave him_ behind _? What the fuck kind of 'mysterious ways' bullshit is this?_

The sharp scent of alcohol burns his nostrils; Gerard inhales deeply, easing into deep water. _Was he supposed to get the band off the ground? Why? There are, like, fucking starving children and women being buried alive by the Taliban – was it a slow day for miracles or something? Was he for Mikey after all? Was he – was he supposed to keep me from drinking again? Because…_

His finger traces the tequila shotglass, not dipping into the liquid but collecting the barest trace of moisture. For a moment Gerard distracts himself by rubbing his fingertip around the rim, trying to make the glass sing. He and Mikey and Gamma used to do that all the time with her old wine glasses, each of them filling and sipping from the glasses to adjust their pitch and harmony. Mikey usually broke his glass.

The shotglass and God both remain silent. "What was he for?" Gerard groans aloud, rubbing at his eye.

No angels crashland in the bar to answer him, or even just to stumble into his arms with huge eyes and quaking limbs. 

"Fuck you," Gerard mumbles, leaning forward to speak through the hanging strands of his own hair. It's dark enough that no one here will recognize him, but it's pure reflex at this point to turn his face away from the room. To hide. "Fuck you for throwing him down here to give me everything I needed and leaving him with nothing. Leaving him _alone_. He wants this so bad and he can't have it – why would you do that to him, huh? _What's the fucking point?_ "

"You got a friend in the wall?"

Gerard turns. A waitress leans against his booth with one hip. She looks a little younger than him, short and dark-haired. Her face is not kind, but she immediately reminds Gerard of the security guards who ushered them around their shows: polite, laid-back, but ready to kick someone's ass at a moment's notice.

"Or maybe you're just talking to yourself?" she finishes.

It's in Gerard's mouth to respond, words behind his teeth before his own breath steals them away.

He sits back, looks at the alcohol, then at his own knuckles curled on the table's edge. Thinks about where he is, who he is, and Frank and Mikey back at Ray's apartment. 

_Why would you do this to them? Why would you leave them alone?_

His throat clicks loud when he swallows. Prickles wave up his arms, across his shoulders and tickle his back.

He smiles shakily, amazed and disbelieving. "Yes. I am. I'm totally fucking talking to _myself_."

When he looks up the waitress' eyebrows have risen a centimeter. "Are you an angel?" Gerard whispers.

That lifts her eyebrows the rest of the way. "Ooookay. Think you're done, sweet thing."

"Yes," Gerard agrees instantly. "Abso-fucking-lutely. I'm done. I'm done."

Methodically, decisively, he takes each shot glass and overturns it, puts it face-down in a puddle of its own spilled innards. The waitress makes a sound of protest and Gerard starts. "Oh, shit," he croaks around the sudden tears crowding the back of his throat. "I'm sorry. You got a towel? I can – you don't have to."

Then he's really crying, sobbing messily while he grabs paper napkins from the container. Liquid soaks straight through when he plops them down into the puddle of mixed liquor and he grabs more.

"Hey, now," the waitress says. She's probably used to this sort of thing.

Gerard forms a dam of paper napkins. The shotglasses clink together. "I'm an alcoholic," he says.

Her hands still above his, hovering for a beat before settling on his wrists. "Did you…?"

"No." Gerard closes his eyes, feels water leak down his cheeks.

"Why don't you – I can get this."

"No. No, it's okay. Gotta clean up my messes, you know?"

He lets her help, though, and together they mop up the booth table. Gerard cups his hand underneath a wad of dripping paper, shivering when the liquid hits his skin – _fuck, shit, shit, I can't get drunk through osmosis, can I?_ – then hurling them into the trash can that she drags out from under the bar.

"Thanks," he says. Alcohol clings stubbornly to his fingertips and he shivers again. "Holy shit. Hooooooooly shit that was close." He laughs weakly. "Do you have a bathroom?"

"Not that you wanna use." The waitress grabs a towel from behind the counter. Taking one wrist at a time, she wipes his hands dry with rough swipes.

"Thanks," Gerard says again on an exhale, his shoulders falling. He's still crying, quieter now, but she hasn't even blinked. Gerard likes her on principle alone. "What's'r name?"

"Jamia," she says.

"Hi, Jamia. I'm Gerard."

She shakes both of his hands between her own. "Nice to meet you, Gerard Way."

He gasps. "Angel?" 

One corner of Jamia's mouth deepens into a self-deprecating smile. "Nope. Fan."

"Oh." Gerard's brain has officially shorted out. This will all horribly embarrass him later, but right now he only feels the clean, warm flood of relief. "Thank you," he says politely, formally.

She rolls her eyes and squeezes his hands once before dropping them. "Get the fuck outta here, okay? I mean, go do something else. Please. That would be awesome."

"I don't know what to do," he admits, and can't help the whine in his voice.

Jamia cocks her head to one side and shoots him an exasperated look. "Dude. No one does. Make it up as you go along, works for me."

Through the tears, Gerard grins. "You're my favoritest fan ever, Jamia."

"Aw, that's sweet. Now, seriously, get the fuck out of here."

"Okay, okay," Gerard gasps, staggering for the exit.

-o-

Five steps away from the bar's door, a sharp burst of Bon Jovi rends the night and Gerard's phone buzzes in his pocket. "H'lo?"

"It's Bob," says Bob, "get the fuck over here. Frankie's fucking dyin' or something."

-o-

Bob is sitting in Ray's open door, smoking a cigarette. Seeing him there, seeing the way he leans on the wall, Gerard starts freaking right the hell out before he's even close, and Bob has to come out and get him. 

"He's not dead," Bob tells him straightaway, gripping Gerard's arms. "Gerard. He's not dead, and he keeps saying that it's okay. So… maybe, what the fuck, I don't fucking know."

A feather sits in Bob's blond hair. Gerard stares at it in the light of early, early morning. There are more feathers in the doorway, drifting across the floor of Ray's living room on faint currents of air, and the whole apartment smells strangely of apples. The smell gets stronger as he walks slowly into the bedroom.

In there, it looks like someone cut a feather pillow open and poured its guts out everywhere.

Ray's pulled a chair into the room and sits near the bed, his elbows bent on his knees; he jumps up when Gerard comes in. On the bed, Mikey sits with his skinny shoulders hunched over, his body twisted at an awkward angle to lean over Frank. Feathers of various sizes stick to their clothes and the sheets, drifting and detaching and floating.

Frank curls on his side with his narrow face pressed against Mikey's knee. Behind him, there isn't much left of the wings: it's like there was never any bone or flesh to them in the first place, and now they're just unraveling all over the place.

Ray is talking to him. " – about two hours, or – I don't know, when did you leave? Mikey said he heard something and then he yelled for me and Bob, and – and there were already feathers everywhere by then, you know? And it just keeps going."

Mikey looks over his shoulder. His eyes are red. Gerard reaches to him automatically, stepping a little nearer to the bed.

"Maybe he's molting?" Ray suggests desperately.

"No," Gerard murmurs. 

At the sound of his voice Frank moves a little. Gerard eases down to kneel beside the bed and finds a pair of slitted eyes staring back at him. 

"Frankie," Gerard whispers miserably.

"S'okay," Frank croaks. "It's okay, Gee." One of his hands unfolds from its tight clench. It gropes across the bed.

"What's happening?" Gerard asks him. Another feather detaches and he catches the flinch of pain in Frank's expression. 

"S'nothing," Frank says, his voice slurred against Mikey's knee. "They'll be gone soon."

"You're doing this, aren't you?" Gerard cries. "Frank, _stop_. I'm fucking serious, dude, whatever you – _stop_."

Frank blinks, pulls his hand back. "Can't," he says hoarsely.

"No, come on." Gerard wavers between reaching out and snatching his hands away; he winds up resting them both on the mattress near Frank. "You've gotta fucking stop. You don't wanna do this, please, Frankie, come on."

Frank curls up away from Gerard. "Fuck you," he mumbles, his eyes screwing shut as a flight feather tumbles free onto the comforter. "What's fucking wrong with me now, huh?"

 _Failure rate – increasing_. At this point Gerard doesn't trust himself not to make things worse – fuck, Frank might turn himself into a fucking _frog_ or something – so he gets up and goes out into the hall. From there he can smell smoke and just barely see Bob standing outside the door.

"Hey," Mikey says in his ear.

Gerard turns in time to see Mikey's expression change; he inhales and Gerard's heart sinks. "You smell like." He doesn't finish.

"I went to a bar," Gerard whispers.

Mikey flinches. The movement takes him a few inches further away and Gerard lunges after him instinctively. _Don't leave me don't leave me Mikey not again_. "I didn't. Swear." He breathes a thick huff of air onto Mikey's face.

Mikey wrinkles his nose. "Your breath stinks."

"But not. I didn't." He drags Mikey into his arms so that he can't get away. "I bought stuff. I bought – Three Motherfuckers, three shots, but I didn't drink. I poured them out."

"Okay, um." Mikey grips him back. "Nothing?"

"Nothing, Mikey. Swear it. Gamma's grave."

"Okay," Mikey says, his voice going thin and wavery. "Does – does that count? You didn't really drink. That doesn't count, does it? You're still clean."

"I think so," Gerard murmurs, tucking his fingers in the folds of Mikey's shirt. Just barely.

Inside the room, Frank moans in pain.

-o-

It takes three days for Frank to lose the wings. They try hurrying up the process by tugging at the feathers, but then Frank starts screaming and they decide that really isn't a good idea.

Gerard can't stand to be in there with him. It's awful to watch… not the wings, that's pretty slow and boring, a feather detaching every now and then without fanfare. But it must hurt like a bitch because Frank twists his fingers in the sheets.

When he starts losing the flight feathers Gerard has to move all the way out onto Ray's balcony. He shivers in the breeze, Frank's desperate whimpers echoing in his ears. Bob joins him after a while, and they pass cigarettes back and forth in silence, waiting like fathers outside a delivery room but without any such certainty in the outcome. 

The third night is the worst. Gerard finds Mikey and Ray sitting outside the open door. "He won't let us near him," Ray whispers wearily. Mikey sits against the wall with a fingernail caught between his teeth.

Beyond him in the dim room, Gerard can make out Frank's outline, sitting up on the bed with the comforter hugged to his chest. The wings are nothing more than nubs on his back and Gerard recoils in horror, tearing his gaze away.

He sits down and huddles against Mikey's bent legs. Bob, who had followed him down the hallway, leans against the wall and says, "You said he fell before. In your kitchen."

"I thought he did," Gerard murmurs. "I don't fucking know anything, man. He just showed up." It makes him think of Frank back in the beginning, strange and new and freaked out by everything. Jesus, it's been four months. Frank has lasted the whole summer with them and he's still a complete fucking mystery to Gerard. 

"So what happens now?" Bob asks, biting at his lip ring.

Gerard looks from him to Ray; Mikey's already at his back. "I want him to come with us. As, like, a tech or just to… come along."

Ray picks at his jeans. "It'd be hard," he says, in the voice of someone who has thought about this a lot. "We'd have to find someone to fake paperwork for him. Or we could say that he was born in a commune, and never got a birth certificate or social security card, but there's no one else that can, you know, corroborate? So, like, either way we'd have to lie through our teeth and hope nobody looks too close – "

A low whine slides out of the dark cave of the bedroom. Its frayed, hurt edges catch at their skin and raise goosebumps, silence their voices. Gerard rolls upright onto one knee but Mikey's hand pulls him up short. "He kicks."

"He's coming with us," Bob says quietly, beyond the tight circle of Ray and Gerard and Mikey, but still a part of it. Still present. "I'll fit him in my motherfucking luggage if I have to."

Gerard laughs a little, helpless and frantic, but sits back down again.

-o-

A week and a half before Halloween, Frank emerges, blinking, from the pile of shriveled feathers and immediately almost falls flat on his face. Ray catches him; he'd probably been expecting this. Ray fucking Toro. "Take it easy, Frankie."

Frank sways. His eyes are huge, freaked. "Fuck."

Gerard stands in the doorway, playing with his shirt sleeves. He wants to ask Frank how he's doing, wants to go over and be the one that Frank clings to; but Gerard's life has been a series of stumbling missteps so far, Frank included.

Frank's gaze slides around the room, finds his, and blinks quickly away again. "I'm hungry," Frank croaks, his fingers curled in a death grip on Ray's shirt.

"You still sore?" Ray asks gently.

Frank ducks his head, nods. "Fucking cocksucking motherfucker."

Ray doesn't even sigh at the expletives. 

At the end of the hall, Bob stands with his hands deep in his pockets. "He okay?" he asks Gerard in a low voice. He doesn't come any closer. At Gerard's nod, Bob shuffles away into the living room; after a moment the TV switches on low.

Frank the Person can barely walk: however much a pair of angel wings weighs, they're gone now. Mikey designates himself the official Frank-catcher – or Frank chooses him for the job and Mikey accepts it with a weary eyeroll. It's hard to tell with those two. Either way, it takes a while for Frank to adjust to his body's new center of gravity, and Mikey walks him back and forth down the hall with his forearms braced underneath Frank's.

Frank the Person has the same dark hair, narrow shoulders, and wiry arms as Frank the Angel. All of his fingers, toes, and tattoos remain the same… with two minor but noticeable additions. A pair of tiny, palm-sized wing tattoos rest on each shoulder blade. 

Peanut butter remains the staple of his diet. Without the wings on his back, he wears baggy T-shirts of 70's metal bands; he still refuses to wear proper shoes, and shuffles after Mikey barefoot on their hallway jaunts. He looks ridiculously fragile, drowning in Ray's T-shirt and digging his toes into the carpet for purchase.

Gerard sits on the couch and watches them go back and forth. 

"Slow down, motherfucker!" Frank snaps at Mikey.

From his point of view, Gerard can't see Mikey's face; but he can sense the eyeroll. "We should get you a stroller."

"Fuck you."

"Fuck you."

Frank grins suddenly, unexpectedly, his eyes on his feet but his face bright. " _Fuck youuuuu_ ," he sings.

It takes Mikey a moment to catch on but then he sings a (slightly flat), " _Fuck youuuuuu_ ," in harmony. He was never good at singing backup; Gerard caught him mouthing silently into his microphone sometimes, leaving Ray out there alone.

" _Fuck youuuuuuu_ ," Frank sings back, slipping a perfect fifth above Mikey.

Gerard sits up. It catches Frank's eyes, but he looks over too fast and the movement throws him off-balance. He stumbles, then flushes. He refastens his gaze on his feet.

Gerard eases back slowly. After Mikey and Frank have turned the corner of their circuit and are halfway back down the hall, Gerard gets up to find Ray in the kitchen.

"How much," he asks in a whisper, "um. You taught Frank to play the guitar, right?"

Ray pauses in the act of spooning out coffee and tucks both lips between his teeth. He looks past Gerard toward the distant shuffle of feet and soft cursing. 

-o-

A week before Halloween, Gerard sends Brian a text message. _10-31-05. the tulliver, trenton. second coming._ After a moment's thought, he goes back and changes _coming_ to _cumming_ , just to mess with Brian, and sends it with a snicker. After that he makes everyone else turn off their phones – he even takes the battery out of Mikey's Sidekick, he knows there's no way Mikey will resist the temptation. 

There are few people in the world more cunning than Brian Schechter, though, and Gerard stays on edge the whole week, fearing betrayal or espionage. Between his paranoia, his growing stage nerves, and Frank's sudden tailspin, he's feeling a little frayed.

It seems to happen overnight. One day Frank is okay – well, not _okay_ , he just fell from grace or something… Gerard doesn't know the specifics and he doesn't really want to, he's just glad that's it over – and the next he clams up tight. He won't even talk to _Mikey_ , just sleeps or sits in front of the TV chain-smoking and watching his soaps with blank eyes. His coordination has improved, though if he stands still for very long he'll slowly, slowly tilt forward like a tree falling in the woods. Bob always sees the slow timbers first – he's got good situational awareness, Bob. They'll be standing outside smoking and talking (or not talking, in Frank's case) and Bob will suddenly put an arm out, nudge Frank back to vertical, and that will be that.

They're all trying to nudge him back into place in their own small, uncertain ways. But the only one who really knows what's happened here and what the consequences will be is Frank, and he's not sharing.

Five days before the show, Gerard finds Frank on the balcony with a cylinder of ash drooping from his fingers and his shoulders bent in on himself. Gerard bites his lip, responsibility warring with the need to comfort. He settles for brushing his hand across the bent, defeated line of Frank's back. "Frankie?"

Frank's only response is to scatter ash with a flick of his fingers. Pulling Ray's other, rickety lawn chair over, Gerard sinks down into it. "You gotta start talking to us again sometime, Frank. Come on."

No go. Frank's face is as closed off as it's been for days; his shuttered eyes stare down at his feet. Gerard's fingers strike up an irregular rhythm on his knee. It's cloudy outside; the smell of wet pavement promises rain.

After the silence winds into a painful knot, Gerard ducks his head and pretends to scratch at his hair while he checks in the apartment; Ray and Mikey are long gone on their mission, and Bob is in the kitchen making pancakes for lunch, or 'linner' as he likes to call his mid-afternoon meal. Bob's kind of like an overgrown hobbit, eating small meals at random hours.

He straightens back around. "So yeah. About not wanting you? I totally fucking lied. So, there's that."

In the corner of Gerard's eye, Frank goes still for a beat then looks at him. Blood pools hot in Gerard's face, his ears, and he stares at his fingers. "Um. Fuck, I'm shitty at this," he mutters. "I didn't – if that's why you did this, then I'm sorry."

"It isn't," Frank murmurs.

Gerard pauses, relieved, then mumbles, "I'm still sorry."

Frank's cigarette drops to the ground in front of Gerard and he grinds it with his shoe out of reflex. "Motherfucker," Frank says, but there's no venom in it.

"I just – like you said, scared. I was scared I'd fuck you up. I still kinda am." Gerard rubs his hands together, registering the air's chill for the first time. _Coming up on ten months clean_ , he thinks. "And I feel responsible for you. You were like, this weird, pure miracle – "

" _What?!_ "

Gerard jumps. Inside the apartment, Bob calls out, "That Frankie?"

Frank sits up straight in his chair, glaring at Gerard; he spares a moment, though, to shout back, "Yes!"

"Welcome back from muteland, Frankie."

"Fuck you, Bob Bryar myswornenemy!" Frank turns back to Gerard, who shrinks back in his chair instinctively. "Pure? _Pure?!_ Are you _high_?" He waves around another cigarette before jamming it into his mouth. "That's a rhetorical fucking question. I know you're not. You're just a fucking _retard_."

"That's impolite," Gerard says automatically. "It's 'mentally-challenged.'"

"It's Gerard the Retard, you idiot," Frank bellows around the cigarette as he tries to light it. "Pure," he snorts, taking a drag on and shaking his head. " _Pure_."

"Well," Gerard says defensively. "Angel."

"Dude," Frank says, pointing the cigarette at him, "I mighta started out pretty clueless, but I didn't fucking _stay_ that way! What do you think I do here locked up all day? I found Ray's porn stash and I've been beating off nonstop whenever you guys aren't around!"

Gerard flings his hands up in the air, torn between covering his ears and maybe doing some kind of cheerleader move. "Really?" he asks, goggling.

Frank catches his expression. His own face slowly changes into something downright… devilish. "He's got a lotta bondage porn," he says in a low, low voice.

Gerard's hands go for the middle ground and clap over his flushed face. "Hmmm. Um. Hm. If you, uh," he gropes desperately for a different topic. "If you didn't do it because of me, then… why?"

When he looks over, the smile has slipped off again. Frank plays with his lip piercing a bit. Gerard shifts uncomfortably, balanced between anxiety and arousal – which is nothing new, Frank's had him in that place for a while now.

"I don't know what to do," Frank admits in a soft voice.

A giggle blurts out of Gerard's throat before he can stop it. "Join the club," he says, and spreads his hands when Frank frowns at him. "I never do."

"But I did," Frank says, his frown deepening. "I – didn't know _what_ , really, or how, but I knew I was helping."

"Helping me?"

Frank looks at him, blinks. "No. I mean, yeah, once I got here and I figured things out. But that wasn't why, originally."

Dropping his hands, Gerard frowns. "Mikey, then?"

Frank squirms in his chair. "No."

"Who, then?"

"I can't tell you. It's a secret. No, seriously," Frank says quickly. "Seriously, Gee. I can't tell you. You just gotta trust me. I came to help someone, and… I think I did."

"Ray?"

"Gee!"

"Fine!" Gerard throws his hands up. The rush of anger and hurt in his chest startles him. "So fucking mysterious, jeez."

"Don't fucking be _angry_ with me, motherfucker!"

"I'm sorry! It's just – fuck, man, I feel like I don't know anything about you." Gerard flicks a fingernail at a splatter of dried bird poop on the arm of his chair.

"There's not much to know, now," Frank says bitterly, and Gerard immediately feels like an asshole. Frank peers for a long moment over the edge of the balcony at the trees, the courtyard. When he speaks again, his voice sounds utterly, utterly lost. "I made a choice, twice, and I don't regret it. But… I thought I would know what to do when I got here. I always did before, even when I didn't totally understand things. And then I gave up – " He gestures vaguely behind him. " – and there isn't anything. My head is just fucking _empty._ I don't know what I'm supposed to be anymore. I don't know what to do."

It's started to rain. Droplets make the leaves jump. Behind them, Gerard hears the front door to Ray's apartment open; he could be blind and deaf and numb, but would still know Mikey was there.

He sends up a prayer to anyone that might be listening, then fights his way out of his bucket chair. Frank watches him rise, uncertain and silent even when Gerard reaches down for his hand.

"Welcome to the human race, Frankie," Gerard says. Frank scoffs. "No, seriously. That's, like, all of us. If there's someone out there that knows what they're doing 100% of the time, I haven't met them. And if I did, I'd probably try to poke them in the eye then run away."

Frank stares up at him, searching back and forth between Gerard's eyes. He gets up when Gerard tugs him, though, and follows inside.

The timing isn't great. Ray and Mikey are still wrestling with shopping bags from guitar center, but Ray manages to whip off the important one in time. "Hey, Frank."

"He's talking," Bob says from the kitchen.

"Pancakes smell great, Bob," calls Gerard, who firmly believes that anyone who _can_ cook should be lauded and blown whenever possible. "You get it?" he asks Ray and Mikey.

Mikey rolls his eyes. "No, we came home empty-handed for your big moment."

"Fuck off," Gerard tells him affectionately, then nudges Frank out in front.

"Hey," Ray greets him. "So, uh. Yeah." He flushes, awkward, and hoists up the case.

Frank stares a moment, still as a tree. After a moment he starts to tip forward slightly and Gerard puts a hand on his shoulder, rights him. "It doesn't fucking bite, dude," he says in Frank's ear.

"It's an Epiphone Elitist Les Paul," Ray babbles, his hair positively _thrilled_ as he takes the guitar out of the case. "Twenty four and three-fourths, got an alpine white finish… _mahogany_. I wanted to get you a Gibson, classic, but there just wasn't anything in your size."

"Super petite," Mikey mumbles.

"Fuck you," Frank says instantly, but the two syllables wobble. He takes a few more uncertain steps toward Ray, then pauses and wipes his hands on his T-shirt, glances back at Gerard.

It's black and white and completely fucking awesome; Gerard knows nothing about guitars, but plenty about color and design. Frank's guitar is fucking beautiful. Frank takes it with the reverence of a religious artifact, holds it awkwardly to his chest. 

"Hold on, hold on," Ray murmurs, rifling through the bags. "Okay. C'mere." Ray laughs a little, holding up the strap. "Well, this should feel familiar."

Frank laughs, too, strangled. He holds completely still while Ray slides the strap over his left shoulder, clips it to the neck, then attaches the other end to the strap button.

The strap is _rainbow_ colored. Gerard shoots a look at Mikey, who grins unapologetically.

From the kitchen there comes a slow clapping. Bob stands in the doorway with an apron – an _apron_ – around his waist.

God, Gerard loves his band. He's grinning like a fool and maybe a little misty-eyed as Bob shouts, "Twirl for us, Frankie."

"Don't twirl!" Ray blurts, laughing. "Just turn, don't fucking twirl."

Frank takes a few steps back and pivots. The guitar hangs across his hips, neck cradled in his left hand. His other fingers run hesitantly across the strings, then both hands move together and he strums a soft chord. 

His smile could light Paris, and he has eyes for nothing else in the room but the neck and the fret and the shining, delicate bridge.


	4. The Second Cumming of MCR

Gerard has been smoking since he woke up and yelping to warm his voice. Everytime he does, Frank echoes like a homing beacon. Frank slings his guitar around himself the moment he gets out of bed (at the crack of noon – apparently angels are not morning people); it's extra weight on his front and he struggles under it. His features have lost their listlessness, though, replaced by a nervous thrum of excitement.

Bob keeps wandering into a corner to do jumping jacks, not making eye contact with anyone; Ray tunes and re-tunes his guitar, running through the set list; Mikey sits on the couch. Occasionally he turns a page in _US Weekly_.

Dropping down beside Mikey, Gerard burrows into his neck. "Stop not freaking out, Mikey."

Mikey _hmmm_ s, turns a page. "I'm not worried. We _have_ done this before, y'know."

Gerard sits back, drumming his knee. "Not sober."

"Not sober," Mikey agrees. "We've got something better than booze, though."

"Whassa?"

With a smirk, Mikey flourishes his hands at Frank. He's hopping next to Bob, who is mid-set on some more jumping jacks. "We have God on our side," Mikey says. "Or, close enough."

It made Gerard hoot with laughter, and that made everyone look at him. He jumped up from the couch and thrust his fist up in the air. " _We_. Are on a mission from Gawd."

Mikey rolls his eyes. Ray looks doubtful. Bob has no opinion on any of it, judging from his blank look. Undeterred, Gerard runs to Frank and lifts him up from behind, staggering only a little, thank you very much. " _Can music save your mortal soul?_ " he sings wildly, without regard for pitch. 

There's a wave at his back, building and building, and fuck if he's not gonna ride it as far as it will take him. "Frankie, we're gonna save some souls, okay? We're on a mission from Gawd!"

"Don't break my fucking guitar, motherfucker," Frank yells, but he's laughing, too. On a reckless impulse Gerard bites his earlobe, sucks at it once, then puts him down carefully. His heart jumps in delayed reaction and his brain trails far behind muttering in disapproval; it feels like all his organs are firing at different moments, a chaotic flurry of chemical reactions.

Frank looks over his shoulder. His eyes are a little wide.

"5 pm," Bob says, with all the easy punctuality of a tech.

"You know I'm going to have to break you of all your good habits," Gerard tells him.

"Don't, Bob!" Ray rolls up the set list, tucks it in his back pocket with a grin. "Don't let him break you. I'm counting on you for backup."

 _You'll never break me_ , Gerard thinks. He'll have to remember that, for later.

"Okay," Gerard says, glancing around at all of them in whole, the five. He'd loved the idea of a foursome, before, him and Mikey and Ray and Matt; he'd drawn caricatures of them as the Horsemen, Mikey as Famine ("I'm not _that_ skinny," Mikey had protested), Ray as War, Matt as Pestilence, and Gerard as a pale Death. Good things came in fours: Beatles, Stones, Queens. 

He can't think of any legendary fivesomes, and resolves to change that. "Let's ride, motherfuckers."

-o-

The Tulliver is not a well-known club. It's a squarely second-tier punk club that started out a disco, but then had the good goddamn sense to change with the times. There's still something of a dance floor with black-and-white tiles. 

It's not a place that's naturally built for bands – the stage is a little small and far from the back entrance. The bands that play here have to lug their stuff all the way from the back entrance down a narrow hall – whose walls have been pockmarked over the years by the corners of amps banging into them – up a small flight of stairs, and onto the stage. Having made the roundtrip once, most local bands don't want to make it again, and it's too small to house anyone big enough to supply their own slave labor (i.e. techs).

The concert is not a big deal. The bands are a motley assortment of gothic and horror-themed groups that probably get a lot of gigs around this time of year, and no other.

Ray has wrangled up a van from somewhere. They arrive at 7 pm sharp by Gerard's estimation, 7:21 by Bob's watch. "We've talked about this, Bob," Gerard says, mostly to cover the way his hand is drumming so fast on the seat that it might need an exorcism.

Things get worse inside: it's a fucking bar and he's fucking nervous. That used to be a simple equation, a matter of shots (his Getting Through the Night system). Now, he helps Bob lug in his kit, and the amps, and the guitars. When there's nothing else to carry he fiddles with his microphone. Bob's pretty much taken over the club's sound equipment with Ray at his shoulder. Gerard watches them argue about levels for a bit before he says, "Hey, guys, where's Frankie?"

Ray, who probably knows every tone of Gerard's voice, glances up. Bob does not. "Think he's in the bathroom."

He is. Someone has propped the door to the Men's open, so Gerard walks in unheard to find Frank standing in front of the mirror. He silently reaches for chords on the guitar neck. His eyes are closed; mouth moves slowly.

Gerard stands there watching him, his breath soft and quiet. When Frank's eyes open to find his, he smiles apologetically at Frank's surprised twitch. "Sorry. Hey."

"Hey," Frank greets him, looking a little uncertain. He ducks his head, fiddles with his guitar.

The scent of disinfectant fills Gerard's nose as he edges closer. It's not the worst thing to smell in a public restroom. "You okay?"

One of the other bands has arrived. They shout down the long hallways to each other with voices made hoarse by adrenaline; a few shadows flicker across the bathroom walls as they pass by the door, but no one comes inside.

"Fucking nervous," Frank mutters. His long dark hair hangs in his face.

Swinging the backpack off his shoulder onto the sink counter, Gerard says, "You, uh, wanna try on some makeup? I wear some, in the shows, just some eyeliner and shit. It… it helps. Like you've got some extra defenses?" He gets out his makeup bag, the Hello Kitty one Mikey bought him in Japan, self-conscious under Frank's gaze. "You don't have to."

"What's it look like?"

"Pretty fucking cool, if you can pull it off. Here, watch." Gerard leans into the mirror and does his own eyes with quick strokes, then turns to Frank. "Kinda like that."

Frank hesitates, then reels his guitar in close to his chest and pivots his hips toward Gerard fully. "Okay."

"Okay?" The uncapped eyeliner pencil wavers in Gerard's hand. "Um. Close your eyes."

Frank's eyelids slide obediently shut and Gerard swallows at the sight of two perfect sets of eyelashes against smooth cheekbones. Catching the corner of Frank's right eye with his pinkie, he gently draws a line of kohl across that lid, then repeats the process on the left. "Okay, now open. Look up."

Frank lifts his eyes to the ceiling, eyes fluttering automatically while Gerard draws a thin line of black on the bottom lids. "Hold still," Gerard murmurs, hunching close.

"I fucking can't," Frank mutters, comically stretching out his mouth as he tries to hold his eyes still. "They're, like, possessed or something."

"The power of Christ compels you," Gerard tells Frank's eyelids sternly, and Frank giggles.

"You're a dork," Frank whispers.

"Yup," Gerard answer, smudging the black lines with his thumb then leaning back to eye his handiwork. "Maestro!"

Frank leans in and kisses his mouth clumsily, catching just the corner. 

When Gerard pulls away half an inch, Frank rears quickly back. He drops his face, but Gerard can see the pink splash on his cheeks, the tightness around his lips.

"Frankie," he starts.

"Sorry," Frank says shortly. "Fucking stupid. Oh, and fuck you." His eyes dart up quickly, rimmed in black.

Carefully, Gerard sets down the eyeliner. Carefully, he steps into Frank's space. Frank doesn't look up and Gerard has to bend and twist down and push Frank's hair back to kiss him. At first Frank doesn't reciprocate, keeps his mouth closed stubbornly until Gerard licks the small silver lip ring that Bob bought for him. Then his mouth opens and Gerard crowds him against the wall without hesitation, slides a thigh between Frank's legs.

Frank gasps and arches, head dropping back loose on his neck. Taking advantage of the angle, Gerard drops his mouth and presses wet kisses along his jaw.

"Careful," Frank gasps. "Pansy."

"You're the fucking pansy," Gerard murmurs.

"No. Guitar. Pansy."

Gerard leans back. "You named your guitar _Pansy_? What, you gonna start sleeping with that thing?"

Frank clutches the guitar's neck tight. His eyes are dark, intense, and he leans forward again. "Find out, motherfucker."

Gerard lets Frank kiss him for a few moments, then gently cups his jaw and tugs him away a few inches. "Not now. We gotta – fuck, Frank," he says quickly, seeing the change in Frank's face, "I want to, okay? But we can't right now. We have to go onstage in a bit."

Frank looks like he wants to argue, or punch something, or both; but he licks his lips and says, "After?"

Gerard leans in again. "Okay." He moves his thigh a little, just to prove his commitment or whatever, and Frank groans loudly.

Behind them, someone clears their throat.

Gerard freezes with his mouth against Frank's. He knows that throat-clearing, and the parts of him that aren't insanely turned on or nervous about the show curl up in abject embarrassment. He detaches his lips from Frank with a soft wet noise that echoes like a fucking avalanche in the bathroom – the _public_ bathroom. "Um. Hey, Mikey."

Mikey has his head bowed and one hand wedged over his eyes. "Hi."

"We were, um."

"Putting on makeup," Frank puts in, his voice rough and his eyes on Gerard. _Jesus_ , Gerard thinks. That must have been some good porn that Frank watched because he's giving Gerard this _look_ , and Gerard has to turn his head away again quickly or he's going to shove Mikey out the door and do unspeakable things to Frank right there against the sink.

Instead he snatches up the eyeliner and waves it around like evidence. "You wanna. Put some on?" he squeaks.

Mikey lowers his hand slowly, peeking to make sure that it's safe before he drops it all the way. "Sure," he says slowly, looking back and forth between them.

Frank giggles and claps a hand over his mouth.

"Shut up," Gerard hisses then raises his voice to Mikey. "You want just a little, or raccoon?"

"Just a little," Mikey says, edging closer.

"Okay. Eyes closed."

Mikey closes his eyes, but then immediately opens one. "Don't kiss me or anything."

Behind Gerard, Frank giggles again. "Shut up!" Gerard tells them both desperately, but he's laughing, too, now, helpless titters that make him shake.

Mikey leans away, eyebrow arcing in alarm. "And don't stab my eye, either."

"Shut up and hold the fuck still, motherfucker." Gerard tilts Mikey's face up.

(Years later, Gerard will remember nothing about the Tulliver. He'll save the date and celebrate it every year – staunchly ignoring the eyerolls – but the walls and tiled floor of the Tulliver will be lost in the jumble of a million venues all around the world. The only thing that he'll recall of the building itself is the bathroom, the way its light catches in the fine bones of Mikey's upturned face, the heat of Frank at his back, the echoes of their rising, giddy laughter off the hard walls.)

When he finishes with Mikey they all check themselves out in the mirror. "Cool," Frank says. He waits until Gerard looks at his reflection then licks his lips.

"Oh my God," Mikey mutters, wedging his hand back in place.

-o-

There's a snaking line out front, mostly a bunch of kids and almost-kids. Apparently there's a costume contest later because Gerard sees a lot of masks, witch hats, and schoolgirl outfits. 

A whole group has come in 'blood'-splattered clothes as the start of a zombie apocalypse. They've _got_ to be fans.

Casually as possible, Gerard makes his way over to what looks like their zombie leader, a chunky, laughing guy who's waving a cigarette around. A bunch of homemade intestines spill out of a hole in the front of his shirt. It's pretty gruesome. Gerard grins and taps him on the shoulder. "Scuse me," he says politely.

"This ain't the back of the line, dude," the guy beside The Zombie Leader says.

"Not cutting," Gerard says, "just want a lighter. You got one?"

"Oh," the Zombie Leader says, eyeing Gerard with a puzzled frown. "Um, yeah. Shelly?"

A girl with a bloody wound on the side of her neck is staring. "You're," she gasps.

One of her friends plucks the lighter out of her hand and tosses it to the Zombie Leader, who hands it to Gerard. "Thanks," he says cheerily, and quickly lights the cigarette in his mouth.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Shelly grab her friend's shoulder and whisper in her ear.

"Enjoy the show, guys." Gerard waves to them all. Zombie Leader has definitely caught on, too, and fumbles the lighter when Gerard hands it back, dropping it.

Gerard would stop and pick it up, but he has a feeling that if he stays much longer he's going to be mauled by zombies. He walks quickly away around the corner of the building then breaks into a run the moment he's out of sight, giggling wildly.

At the back door he waves his yellow wristband to the security guard and is just walking inside when he slams into Mikey, who's hurtling out. "Oof! Mikey."

"Gee!" Mikey grips him, his eyes wide. 

Gerard clutches him back. "You okay? What's wrong?"

"Where were you?" Ray says from behind Mikey, his face squeezed up in worry.

It takes Gerard two more heartbeats to realize that he'd wandered off while they were playing in a _club_ with _alcohol_ , and that Mikey is currently staring at his eyes and probably silently smelling his breath. His insides waver between feeling angry, hurt, ashamed, or, weirdly, relieved. "I was out front," he says slowly. "There were some kids out there and I wanted – it'd be cool if people found out. Like – that guy Tim."

"Okay," Ray says just as slowly and carefully. "I thought the whole point was to have it be a secret?"

"Well, yeah, but the best part about secrets is the reveal. And, like, the kids should know. It'd give them hope and stuff."

Mikey's fingers ease off. There'll be bruises on Gerard's arms tomorrow. "God. You're a huge dork," he murmurs in an exasperated, affectionate voice.

Gerard settles for relief and wraps his arms around Mikey's waist as they head back into the club. It's – they have a fucking right to worry about him. It's okay.

He passes through the back door of the club with Mikey as his side and Ray in front of him and thinks, suddenly, clearly, like an opening inside of him, _It's love_. It's love that makes them look for him, worry that he's still sober; the shame is all inside his own head, not theirs. He loves Frank and Bob in equal and totally different way, but Mikey and Ray were there for the worst and they'll still follow him onto a club stage. They'll still love him.

He tightens his arm around Mikey's waist and reaches ahead blindly to catch the back of Ray's shirt as they walk back inside.

The front doors have opened. Gerard can hear the jukebox playing, a bit of preliminary music before the main event. There's not much space to hang around backstage so Gerard finds himself standing outside the bathroom; it's lost its aura of hushed excitement in the clatter and reverberating shouts of the other bands. There's an all-female band in there right now, a line of slender necks and punk hairdos in front of the mirror; one of them wears a halter top and the bare skin of her shoulders reads 'BITCH' in huge, flourishing letters.

"The Juno Sisters," Mikey says in a low voice, his eyes sweeping over their delicate bones and fierce stances.

Gerard rolls his eyes and nudges him forward. After making out with Frank, he kind of owes Mikey one. "Go exchange makeup tips."

"I'd need you for that." 

Mikey heads for the shortest Sister, who has the most hair and eye makeup. When she looks up, Gerard catches the glint of a nose ring and the arch of a thin eyebrow. 

Ray sees the same thing, and says, "Christ. He knows how to pick 'em."

The first band has started up out front. Their muffled sound echoes down the hall and makes Gerard think of the conversation they'd had at the City Gardens. He touches Ray's arm. "Hey. Thanks."

Ray squints at him in the dim light, leaning against the side of the doorway. "For what?"

"I dunno. Being Ray fucking Toro." Gerard shrugs.

Ray flushes but nods. "I am pretty awesome." He grins. "This is such a Hallmark moment."

"Kodak, too. Double-whammy." Gerard affects a blubbery macho voice. "I love you, man!"

A flicker way down the hall draws Gerard's eye. Bob's there, at the bottom of a staircase up to the backstage area, and Frank sits atop his shoulders. They're having some kind of conversation with Bob tilting his head back against Frank's stomach and Frank leaning nearly double to speak back; they both look up when they hear Gerard's laughter. Frank waves one hand frenetically, a giant grin on his face. Bob uncurls all but his thumb and index finger from around Frank's ankles to waggle them at Gerard.

"Oh, Jesus," Ray says, tipping his shoulder back to look. "Maybe we all know how to pick ‘em."

"Hey," someone says and Gerard turns to find the singer of _Sled Dog Afterbirth_ staring at him. "Aren't you – "

"Yup," Gerard tells him cheerily. "Sh! Don't tell anyone!" And he runs away down the hallway toward Frank and Bob, catching Ray's hand as he goes. Mikey will just have to fend for himself.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Ray groans, laughing, but runs with him.

-o-

The Juno Sisters go on just before them. Gerard knows this because when the stage manager yells down the hall “Juno Sisters, two minutes,” Mikey emerges from the bathroom with his mouth still attached to the Shortest Sister.

“Alicia!” the BITCH Tattoo Sister groans. “Oh my God, keep it in your pants.”

Alicia, aka the Shortest Sister, detaches momentarily. She has a bass guitar slung across her back and even Gerard has to (very grudgingly) admit that she looks kind of cool, all punk-rock-chic-chick.

Mikey steers Alicia down the hall backwards, talking in low voices and pecking at each other’s mouths. “Stop watching,” Gerard hisses at Frank.

Frank laughs blithely. He leans into Gerard as the first three Sisters pass them, pinning Gerard against the wall and pressing back against him. “I’m taking notes,” he murmurs over his shoulder.

Gerard coughs his tongue back out of his throat and steels himself, then very deliberately slides his hand up Frank’s hip onto his ass. Nobody out-molests _him_. _He’s_ slept with Bert McCracken.

Then Mikey draws abreast of them and Gerard realizes that he’s got his hands shoved right up Alicia’s shirt, fingers moving over her breasts under the fabric. _Apparently_ , he thinks as he brains himself on the wall in an effort to save his poor, scarred eyes, _Mikey is the best molester in all the land_.

“Gee!” Mikey says, cheerfully unaware that Gerard has just been dealt an eternal wound which will never, ever heal. “This is Alicia. We’re getting married.”

“Hi,” Frank says to Alicia. “I’m Frank. Do you like threesomes?”

Gerard recovers enough to snake an arm around Frank, who grins back at him slyly. 

Alicia rolls her eyes and pulls Mikey’s hands out of her shirt. “Wow, what a buncha gentlemen.”

“You’re not a lady,” Mikey says huskily. Alicia grins.

“Oh my God oh my God.” Gerard splays his fingers around his head, trying simultaneously to block his eyes, his ears, and, for some reason, his nose. He supports a woman’s right to express her sexuality but not _in front_ of him…okay, maybe he supports that, too, just not with his little brother.

Fortunately Alicia swings her bass down from her back and departs with a final peck to Mikey’s lips. A few minutes later the opening guitar rift plays and the lead singer starts screaming.

"Mikey Way on the prowl," Ray crows, his hair bobbing as he chuckles. 

Mikey leans against the wall beside Gerard and says over the music, "I always forget how hot scene girls are."

"They are," Bob concurs solemnly. "Once, I promised to tech a whole four-month tour for free just to get this woman's phone number."

Ray gasps, exaggerated. "No way!"

"Way," Bob says. "Worth it, too. She was six-foot-four, two hundred pounds, and worked as a bounty hunter. Knew six different ways to kill me with her bare hands. Zora was her name. She told me to come back with my drum kit, or on it."

There's a brief pause, filled by the snarling chaos of the Juno Sisters – who aren't bad, actually, they're doing cool things with the drums – and then Frank turns slowly around to Gerard. "He's lying, right?"

Gerard hides his face in Frank's hair.

"He's lying! Right? Gerard! You fucker!" Frank elbows him. "Tell me if he's lying!"

Ray busts up laughing. He could never keep a straight face.

"You're _lying_!" Frank flings out an accusing finger. "You're a lying liar who lies! Bob Bryar!"

Gerard claps a hand over his mouth, laughing helplessly against the back of Frank's neck. Frank yells something muffled that sounds like, "My sworn enemy!" against Gerard's palm.

Ray hooks Bob around the shoulders and pulls him against him, their heads ducks together. On the other side of Frank, Gerard can see the white flash of Mikey's big dorky teeth.

(This, too, he will remember. The sight of Ray and Bob leaning against each other, trying to keep their laughter silent, the sound of Mikey chuckling soft in his ear, Frank's tongue licking his palm and then the feel of his grin stretching wide over Gerard's fingers.)

"The Black Parade, five minutes," the stage manager calls.

Gerard waits for the moment of panic, the spike of fear and the desperation to escape it. It doesn't come. "Okay," he says. "Let's go, motherfuckers."

-o-

They play something new, first: the 'Gerard is a Terrible Person' song (he only calls it that inside his own head, though; Mikey and Ray would worry, and he's had enough of that to last him a lifetime). The reception's good, some surprised yells of encouragement for what they think is a small-time band. 

Then, they play "I'm Not Okay."

It's the same song they've always sung, but with something _more_. Maybe it's the presence of an absolutely devoted fucking drummer – Bob is _flinging_ himself at the drums, pounding away until his hands become a blur – or an actual rhythm guitarist instead of Ray busting his ass trying to fill the sound out on his own – Gerard takes a moment to wonder how much of it had just been that: Ray running himself into the ground trying to keep them afloat all on his own, and coming up just short – or the presence of a former _angel_ as that rhythm guitarist.

In the end, it doesn’t matter. It's what it was meant to be.

He can actually hear the moment that it clicks over for the crowd. It's about halfway through, when all the guitars and drums go quiet for Gerard's whispered voice.

" _Oh my God_ ," someone screams in the blank void of crowd under the lights. " _It's THEM!_ "

Gerard had his eyes closed, getting into the feel of things; when he hears the scream, though, he straightens, opens his eyes, and yells, "BOO!" into the microphone, cutting off Ray's bellowed "Trust me!"

Then they're singing again and Gerard is laughing, his head thrown back and his arms up.

Fair is fair, though, and at the next song break he says quickly, "Hi, we're My Chemical Romance and we're not dead yet."

After that, things get a little… crazy.

They go on, playing a mix of old and new songs. Gerard was totally right about the zombie kids, they all elbow their way down in front and are fucking _flipping out_ , cheering and crying and calling people on their cell phones then holding up the speakers toward the stage. He makes sure to play to them, dropping to his knees right on the edge of the small stage to exchange high fives and hand grabs; it's been a long time since they've played a club this small and he didn't even know how much he'd missed this intimacy with the crowd.

After a while, though, the faces multiply. Gerard climbs up from his knees and, wow, there are a lot more people in the club than he remembers fifteen minutes ago. The Juno Sisters were the second-to-last act, big enough on the local circuit that the club owners had planned for most of the crowd to filter out during the last act.

That doesn't happen.

Gerard finally turns around, between "The Ghost of You," and the 'Mikey Has Left Me Alone' song, to stare at Mikey himself. "Did you?" he shouts.

Mikey shrugs, his bass shrugging with him. "I emailed a couple people," he shouts back.

There's a flood of people at the door. Gerard feels a little stab of anxiety and turns away, sings the next song to his band.

Ray's the only one who looks familiar, same wide, stable stance, his curly hair swinging as he plays. Gerard would know Mikey anywhere, but he doesn't look the same at all without his glasses and with a new determined set to his mouth. Where Matt was dark and laid-back, Bob is a pale blur of energy, driving them forward.

And Frank – Frank is fucking _staring_ at Gerard, fixed, his face sweaty and his mouth hanging open. 

It's enough to make Gerard miss a few words and then he picks it back up, spinning away across the stage and out of his head. The stage is too small to hold him and he jumps off it, sings into a mass of limbs gripping the front of his shirt; the club can't hold their sound and he imagines it swelling outward as he climbs back onstage with a handup from Ray. A wave grows at his back and Gerard flings himself up to ride it, singing and screaming wild shit between songs about God and Fate and squids, or something. This is his, this belongs to him and no one else. He _owns_ this motherfucking stage, someone else has just been borrowing it. 

At some point Frank loses his continually precarious balance and falls over; but he just starts writhing around on the floor of the stage like he meant to do it. Gerard had started over to him, but manages to cover, too, by standing over Frank and putting one shoe on his neck. That gets them some screams.

Frank stares up, wide-eyed and wild. 

Gerard leans over him, careful to keep his weight off that foot, watching the way that Frank keeps playing, his tattooed 'HALLOWEEN' fingers moving over his guitar like it's what they were made to do. Maybe it fucking is.

That gives Gerard an idea and he pushes away from Frank, heads back to center stage. "You motherfuckers are amazing," he croons, pushing his sweaty hair back and blinking around the sting. A wave of screams is his response. "So, I know you guys will do anything I ask, right? 'Cause I got a special request.

"You see this guy over here?" He spins around with his arm outstretched, pointing. Frank's just climbed up onto his knees and kind of freezes that way when Gerard's sharp finger lands on him. "This is Frankie, and today…today is Frankie's birthday. So I want all you beautiful motherfuckers to sing for him with me, okay? You ready? Count of three, I want everybody to sing a big fat punk rock "Happy Birthday" with me. One…twooo… _Happy birthday to you_ …"

The doors to the club are open. People spill out of them onto the sidewalk, not even people in costume anymore; people in jeans and T-shirts that look like they just ran from home; people who aren't even their crowd, just there to see what all the racket is about. Gerard stares out at them all as they sing. He's distantly aware of the club owner dithering around backstage, probably freaking out about fire ordinances and public safety, but what the fuckever, they're not stopping this. They can't. 

A face jumps out at him from the crowd, literally. Gerard fastens his gaze on the waving, tattooed arm and the spiked hair and furious glare, and screams, " _Brian_!"

It's Frank, though, that shouts and takes a running leap off the edge of the stage.

Gerard's heart, which had been rising with joy, spins in place and does a belly-flop. He lurches after Frank instinctively, hopping off the edge of the stage and distantly hearing Ray's nervous, "Hey, hey, guys, careful with the birthday boy, there."

He lands at the front, but there's no way through the press of bodies and he wavers there, torn between just shoving his way through and having faith in a bunch of strangers to return Frank back to him. There's a lot of shouting out in the crowd and Gerard thinks about how small Frank is, how just a few weeks ago he'd been so breakable as he lost his wings. The club hasn't got much in the way of security. Such a stupid fucking idea – great for the ambiance and the excitement, but not if Frankie got hurt, not worth it at all…

Then a familiar pair of bare feet came hurtling in his direction, followed by a head of spiky brown hair. "Where's the fucking stage entrance?" Brian bellows. He's got Frankie up in a fucking fireman's carry on one shoulder, even though he's not much bigger.

Gerard grabs Frank's feet; it doesn't help much, but it sure makes him feel better as he leads the way toward the side of the stage.

There's a moment when Gerard is just focused on getting them through the door and away from the screaming crowd and when he turns around Brian has set Frank down on the ground and grabbed him by the collar and is staring at him.

"What _the fucking fuck_ are you doing here?" Brian yells wildly. Gerard's never seen that look on his face, a kind of wild amazement. Brian's always so together, always the one in control.

Frank grins up at him, completely unfazed. "I followed you!" he shouts back. "I fucking followed you, motherfucker!"

Gerard stares at them both. At tiny little breath of time opens up around them. There's something hanging over this moment. He can hear Ray, Bob, and Mikey playing some kind of riffs to keep the crowd going, but this space between him and Frank and Brian is insulated from all that, and above them hangs… something. He hasn't seen it yet, but it's there ready to descend.

 _MCR_ , the crowd has started to chant. _MCR_.

"How?" Brian shouts. His eyes are kind of bugging out of his head.

"I came to help you!" Frank curls a hand up over Brian's shoulder, gripping him. "I checked up on you, man, I always did! And then I saw – " His gaze goes past Brian to settle on Gerard, and his grin spreads out through the rest of him.

Brian turns and the thing hanging above them drops into Gerard's brain. His eyes feel like they're bugging out, too, staring back at Frank and Brian standing there, side by side, looking at him.

 _They're the same_. The tattoos, the dark features, they're even around the same freaking _size_. 

He reels backward. Brian reaches for him, his face twisting up. "Gee!"

Gerard catches his hand on reflex. Brian, who had talked him through his breakdown, who kept him from killing himself. Who had fought so hard for Gerard to get clean, and seemed so fucking worn out and _defeated_ when it hadn't worked. Who's been there from the beginning.

Who's staring at him with eyes suddenly full of fear. 

_MCR_ , _MCR_.

Gerard has no fucking idea what to do, so he pulls Brian over to him. Hugs seem like a good idea.

"You motherfuckers started back up without me," Brian says shakily in his ear.

It's something that Gerard's got to see with his own eyes, and he finds himself shoving a hand under Brian's shirt, turning him around and lifting. Brian goes easily, like he knows exactly what Gerard is after.

Right on Brian's narrow back, atop both his shoulder blades, are a pair of tattoos. Wings.

 _MCR_ , _MCR_.

Gerard laughs wildly and pulls Brian back to him. "You?" he croaks.

Brian grins in the dim glow of stage lights, shrugs. "Saw a Misfit concert once. Knew I wanted in."

Beyond them, Frank laughs at the top of his lungs, joyous and completely at home. 

Brian steps back and looks between them both. Gerard can see the person that he knows fall into place, taking the place of the angel.

Grabbing both of their arms, Brian shoves them at the stage. "Get out there, you motherfuckers, or there's gonna be a riot. I'll find a fucking getaway car."

Frank is still laughing and grabs ahold of Gerard's hand when Brian lets go. Gerard feels like he'll be reeling for years, but he lets Frank lead him back out under the lights.

And the crowd goes wild.


End file.
